Books on Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Auroville during Mother's years

INTERACTING WITH UNESCO
DURING THE MOTHER’S YEARS

Research based on material extracted

from the autobiography by Kailas Jhaveri
I am with you

Compiled by Paulette Hadnagy.
Published with a grant from Stichting De Zaaier, Holland.

Our acknowledgments to Kailas Jhaveri
for permission to use extracts from her autobiography
Iam with you.

With thanks to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust
for permission to reproduce photographs
of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother
and excerpts from Sri Aurobindo’s works.

With thanks also to the Auroville Archives
for permission to reproduce photographs
of the Auroville Foundation Day and the pioneers’ years,
and to Dominique Darr,
dedicated photographer since Auroville’s beginnings,
as well as to the Auroville photographer Giorgio Molinari.

Cover and color photographs of the Matrimandir
and the Peace area by Paulette Hadnagy.

First Edition July 2014.

Printed at Mother’s Grace Offset
169 Eswaran Koil Street
Pondicherry 605001
India

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

UNDER THE MOTHER’S DIRECT GUIDANCE 1
THE MOTHER’S MESSAGES TO UNESCO 52
WORLD UNIVERSITY FOR HUMAN UNITY

AND INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL PAVILIONS 53

Auroville and the Ideal of Human Unity

Auroville and Education

Auroville: Its Raison d’ Etre

Auroville International University

Towards the Synthesis of Science and Spirituality

Towards the Synthesis of Past, Present and Future

Towards the Synthesis of All Cultures

Towards Change and Reconstruction

Internationalism

Possibilities of Unification and their Shortcomings: Ego

— the Chief Obstacle

Brotherhood

Change of Consciousness — the Solution

Inner Perfection

Difference between the Methods of Religion and Spirituality

Freedom and Mutuality

Towards World Union

A Race of Gnostic Beings — a Race of Gods

Self-transcendence and Self-fulfillment

Adventure of Consciousness and Living

Supramental Consciousness and New Faculties

Education and Research in Auroville

Answers to the Questionnaire on the World University for Human
Unity

International Cultural Pavilions: the 1974 UNESCO Resolution

ANNEXES

FACSIMILES OF THE MOTHER’S MESSAGES 111
A SPECIAL INTERLOCUTOR FROM UNESCO 123
MAN IN ALL HIS GLORY, IN HIS DIVINITY

by Dr. M. Adiseshiah 132
IMAGES FROM THE UNESCO COURIER 1972 133, 134, 150

SRI AUROBINDO — IN THE PATH OF A GREAT SAGE

by K. Srinivasa lyengar-UNESCO Courier 1972 135
SRI AUROBINDO: THE IDEAL OF HUMAN _ UNITY
— UNESCO Courier 1972 138
SRI AUROBINDO: THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY 143

RESOLUTIONS ON AUROVILLE PASSED BY THE GENERAL
ASSEMBLY OF UNESCO 151

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“...freedom, equality, unity are the eternal attributes of the Spirit.
It is the practical recognition of this truth, it is the awakening of the
soul in man and the attempt to get him to live from his soul and not
from his ego which is the inner meaning of religion, and it is that to
which the religion of humanity also must arrive before it can fulfil
itself in the life of the race.”

SRI AUROBINDO, The Human Cycle, p. 570

I dedicate this work to the memory of Mia Berden, an honorary life
member of Auroville International. Her charismatic presence as a board
member of Stichting De Zaaier, the Dutch organization sponsoring
the present book, was behind the funding of a significant variety of
Auroville projects.

These two excerpts from memorial messages from around the world
pay due tribute to this great soul championing a just, humane society:

“T learnt a lot from her all encompassing commitment and struggle for
social justice — for women, yes, but also workers, refugees, migrants
and other vulnerable groups. She had worked as a Labour Inspector
and spent many hours in factories and workshops in Holland.”

“In the passing away of Mia Berden, the movement for women’s ‘human
rights’ and the rights of the working class and marginalized sections of
society in the third world has lost a precious source of inspiration and
guidance — a person who could truly be called one of its patron-saints
of several decades.”

Mia’s luminous being and path points to Sri Aurobindo’s call for the
fulfilment of a truly lived “religion of humanity”. Remembering her
cheerful boldness gives me confidence that the Avatar’s model town,
Auroville, will manifest in all its plenitude.

UNESCO’S ROLE
AT THE INCEPTION OF AUROVILLE

Introduction

Auroville is a unique project that needs the support of governments
and major organizations from all over the world. This was always the
Mother’s approach and consequently UNESCO, for which involvement
with Auroville had begun in 1966, prior to Auroville Foundation Day,
has played a major role in helping in the establishment of the city of
dawn, particularly when the Mother was directly involved. As early as
1966, then in 1968 and 1970, and once again in 1983, ten years after
the Mother’s passing away, UNESCO appealed to all its member-states
to actively support and promote Auroville and its ideals. In addition, in
2007 the Executive Board of UNESCO invited “the Director-General
to reinforce the association of UNESCO, and in particular its Culture
Sector, with Auroville in the context of the commemorative activities
for its 40th anniversary.”

In 2009 the Director-General of UNESCO, Mr K. Matsuura, joined by
the Secretary for Education of the Government of India Mr R. P. Agrawal,
and by Dr Karan Singh, Chairman of the Auroville Foundation, unveiled
a bronze statue of Sri Aurobindo installed in UNESCO’s Headquarters
premises, in Paris. ““Observing that the crises that the world is
traversing are not only economic and financial, but moral, ethical, and
spiritual, Mr Matsuura said that “The teachings of Sri Aurobindo, who
will forever be associated with the founding of Auroville, the unique
international township founded as a place where people from different
cultural, educational and political backgrounds could work together
towards their common goal of human unity and sustainable living,
resonate particularly strongly as we search for long-term solutions.”””!

What follows is a brief presentation of UNESCO’S mission and
activities and the reasons for which it is drawn to the city of unending
education, as well as the Mother’s guidance on Auroville’s relationship
with this international organization. This should help the reader

lhttp://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=46462&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_
SECTION=201.html

understand what prompted the Mother to give her support and blessings
to Kailas Jhaveri, the ashramite who, since 1966, acted as the Mother’s
liaison with this specialised agency of the United Nations (UN) agency.

UNESCO’s aims, principles, scope and activities”

UNESCO is the acronym for “United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization.” Founded in 1945, this specialised agency
of the United Nations (UN) is based in Paris, France. As stated in the
UNESCO Website (2000), its main objective is to “contribute to peace
and security in the world by promoting collaboration among nations
through education, science, culture and communication in order to
further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human
rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of
the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the
Charter of the United Nations”.

UNESCO’s grand themes, which unfold over some fifty year periods of
time, are riddled with contestations over the nature of its higher aims
in the context of divisive, polarising social orders. History proceeds by
evolutionary leaps. There have always been avant-garde movements,
which herald momentous changes that foster the regeneration of
society, but which also trigger tremendous resistances by the old order,
unwilling to give way to the new one seeking to manifest. In such times,
while some people are swept up in the movement one way or the other,
others resist or look on from the sidelines in perplexity. The difficulty
of coming to terms with the manifold crises of our time, a crisis of
civilization that seems insolvable at the core, can be understood within
this perspective.

As of November 2013, UNESCO comprises 195 member-states,
including Palestine, added on 23 November 2011; 9 associate
members (non-independent states); 2 permanent observers; and 10
intergovernmental organizations with permanent observer status.
“Three UNESCO member states are not UN member states: Niue, Cook
Islands and Palestine, while one UN member state (Liechtenstein) is not
a UNESCO member.”? This fact highlights UNESCO’s distinctiveness

2 Unless otherwise specified, the following excerpts are taken from Wikipedia, http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO.
3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of UNESCO

II

from the intergovernmental organization, the United Nations itself,
while still being one of its principal agencies. UNESCO also has official
relations with 322 international non-governmental organizations
(NGOs); it has national, regional, cluster, serving more than one country,
and liaison offices, serving international organizations, established
throughout the world. It awards 22 prizes in education, science,
culture and peace. Unless specified otherwise, the following excerpts
are taken from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO:

6666

UNESCO and its mandate for international co-operation can be traced
back to the League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921 ...
UNESCO pursue its objectives through five major programs: education,
natural sciences, social and human sciences, culture, communication
and information. Projects sponsored by UNESCO include literacy,
technical, and teacher-training programmes; international science
programmes; the promotion of independent media and freedom of the
press; regional and cultural history projects; the promotion of cultural
diversity; translations of world literature; international cooperation
agreements to secure the world cultural and natural heritage (World
Heritage Sites) and to preserve human rights, and attempts to bridge
the worldwide digital divide. It is also a member of the United Nations
Development Group.

UNESCO’s aim is “““‘to contribute to the building of peace, the
eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural
dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and
information”. Other priorities of the organization include attaining
quality Education For All and lifelong learning, addressing emerging
social and ethical challenges, fostering cultural diversity, a culture of
peace and building inclusive knowledge societies through information
and communication.”

The Constitution of 1946 was amended in 1954, to the effect that
“members of the Executive Board would be representatives of the
governments of the States of which they are nationals and would
not, as before, act in their personal capacity. ... Among the major
achievements of the organization is its work against racism ... starting
with a declaration of anthropologists (among them was Claude Lévi-
Strauss) and other scientists in 1950 and concluding with the 1978

Ill

Declaration on Race and Racial Prejudice.” ““In 1956, the Republic
of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the
organization’s publications amounted to “interference” in the country’s
“racial problems.” South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under
the leadership of Nelson Mandela.”

“UNESCO was perceived by some as a platform for communists and
Third World dictators to attack the West, a stark contrast to accusations
made by the USSR in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1984, the United
States withheld its contributions and withdrew from the organization
in protest, followed by the United Kingdom in 1985. ... Following a
change of government in 1997, the UK rejoined. The United States
rejoined in 2003.” “In 2011, Palestine became a UNESCO member
following a vote in which 107 member states supported and 14 opposed.
Laws passed in the United States in 1990 and 1994 mean that it cannot
contribute financially to any UN organisation that accepts Palestine as
a full member.” In protest over the decision by UNESCO to accept
Palestine as a full member, the United States has withheld $ US 80
million a year, which accounts for some 22% of UNESCO’s budget,
forcing the UN agency to cut American-led initiatives and lay off people
from work. “Israel also reacted to Palestine’s admittance to UNESCO
by freezing Israel payments to the UNESCO and imposing sanctions to
the Palestinian Authority, claiming that Palestine’s admittance would
be detrimental “to potential peace talks””.* On 8 November 2013, two
years after halting their payments, the US and Israel have automatically
lost their voting rights in the UNESCO general assembly, in application
of UNESCO’s constitutional bylaws.

UNESCO’s role within the Mother’s grand vision

In Auroville’s history there are references to UNESCO’s support since
1966, when the first resolution was passed, “for the commemoration of

4 “In 1974, UNESCO stripped Israel of its membership on the grounds of alleged
damage being done by Israel’s archaeological excavations ... but renewed Israel’s
membership in 1977, after the United States threatened to withhold $40 million of
funding from the organization.” In 2010 the announced restoration work of the self-
designated National Heritage Site prompted ““‘criticism from the United States and
protests from Palestinians... UNESCO’s Executive Board voted to declare the sites ...
“an integral part of the occupied Palestinian Territories” and any unilateral Israeli action
was a violation of international law.” “On 28 June 2011, UNESCO’s World Heritage
Committee, at Jordan’s insistence, censured Israel’s decision to demolish and rebuild
the Mughrabi Gate Bridge in Jerusalem for safety reasons.”

IV

the 20th anniversary of the UNESCO”. Regarding her own goals on the
development of Auroville, the Mother had told Satprem, “Those people
[UNESCO] are 200 years behind the earth’s progress, consequently
there isn’t much hope that they will understand. But in the end, I
didn’t tell them not to bother with it — I don’t give advice.”° And yet,
on November 29, 1966, two months later, for the commemoration of
UNESCO’s 20th anniversary, the General Conference of UNESCO
unanimously passed its first resolution on Auroville, beginning with this
statement: ““‘Being apprised that in connection with the commemoration
of the twentieth anniversary of UNESCO, the Sri Aurobindo Society,
Puducherry, India, a nongovernmental organization affiliated to the
Indian National Commission for UNESCO, proposes to set up a cultural
township known as “Auroville” where people of different countries
will live together in harmony in one community and engage in cultural,
educational, scientific and other pursuits.’ As Kailas recalls, this
was the background behind UNESCO’s active support for Auroville:
“*. In 1966, Shree E. Pouschpa Dass from India, who was the Director
of the Division of Cultural Development at UNESCO, eloquently
presented the resolution which I had prepared with Salah-El-Din Tewfik
[UNESCO%s representative in New Delhi].”

In 1966 the Mother had appointed Kailas Jhaveri to be the “Secretary-
in-charge, UNESCO section”. The latter was well prepared for the
position, given that she had been working in the information department,
at the United Nations’ headquarters in New York, from 1954 to 1956.
At that time Kailas, who already had a degree in philosophy, changed
her course of study from psychology to international organization and
relations. In one of her classes she met Dr. M. Adiseshiah, Deputy
Director-General of UNESCO, who had been invited to give a talk on
UNESCO and the subject of her new course of studies. This marked the
beginning of a life-long relationship. Following an exchange of letters
with the Mother, in 1964 Kailas left New York, where she had lived and
worked for over ten years, for Pondicherry, to become an ashramite.

The Mother was fully behind Kailas Jhaveri’s dynamic exchange
with UNESCO, particularly through the medium of Dr. Malcolm
Adiseshiah. In December 1968, following his speech at the conference
on Adult Education, held in the Ashram Theatre, which he addressed

5 Mother’s Agenda, September 21“, 1966.

V

as its chairman. The Mother commented, “He is very open to my
Force. Many good things will come from his contact with Kailas.” On
Mahasaraswati’s day, listening to the interview of Dr. Adiseshiah by Dr.
Melville de Mello on Auroville, to be broadcast on the first anniversary
of Auroville, the Mother commented with great force, “A very powerful
being came down and tied Auroville to the ground. It was needed and
he did it. Now, Auroville will be a reality and the world will see it.”

Under the Mother’s direct guidance, and with her blessings,
Kailas played a pivotal role in explaining the ideals of Auroville to
representatives of UNESCO. Her past experience proved very useful for
the task the Mother assigned her; so much so that when Kailas wished
to withdraw — following her main interlocutor’s, Dr. M. Adiseshiah,
retirement from UNESCO at the end of 1970 — the Mother asked her to
continue. Besides contacting ambassadors, other eminent personalities
and representatives of major institutions, Kailas undertook other
activities deemed necessary to help materialize the Mother’s grand
project. Kailas’ tasks ranged from public relations to submitting papers,
to collaborating in drafting resolutions and organizing interviews
on Auroville, in addition to planning for the celebrations for Sri
Aurobindo’s Centenary Year (including writing articles for the special
issue of The UNESCO Courier in 1972). She also wrote at length to
explain the raison d’étre for a University of Human Unity, in its being
very central to the city of unending education the Mother wished for
Auroville. Kailas also described the International Cultural Pavilions as
an intrinsic part of the University; in this context, it is noteworthy that
the Mother had originally conceived the pavilions to be associated with
the Sri Aurobindo Ashram International Centre of Education.

Discussing major UNESCO initiatives that could potentially be taken
on by Auroville, yet always adapted to the spirit of freedom of the
Auroville experiment required by the Mother, was another of Kailas’
commitments. The conditio sine qua non for eventual inclusion of a
project was the capacity to turn it into an Auroville undertaking. The
controversy over the Design for Living project, where the Mother is often
quoted by individuals who have no clue as to the context of her statement,
is one blatant example of the rift between Kailas’ uncompromising
attitude (which was actually very close to that of the Mother), in stark
contrast to the often shortsighted, utilitarian approach of the CAA,

VI

Comité Administratif d’Auroville, headed by Navajata, the Secretary
of the Sri Aurobindo Society, of which The Mother was the President.
The following excerpt from an exchange of correspondence between
Kailas and the Mother highlights the difference in their approach
compared to the CAA’s subservient attitude:

“’.. In spite of their good points and common objectives, Mother, I feel
that our fundamental aims, approach and the basis of work are quite
different from theirs and I am a bit apprehensive about unnecessary
interference from them if Auroville is offered as a part of their project
and experiment. And I feel that if any association must take place, it
should be the Design for Living which should become a part of Auroville
since our aims and objectives are much vaster and far-reaching than
theirs, and the request must come from them or from UNESCO rather
than us going after them. ... Auroville embodies in its very ideology,
conception and town planning the very objectives envisaged in the
Design for Living and goes even further than those objectives to fulfill
the larger aims.”

The Mother replied:

“TI do not know who told you that — but there is a misunderstanding
somewhere because to hand over the management of Auroville to any
country or any group however big it may be is an absolute impossibility.
If it has been at all taken, it is without my knowledge — because I say to
it an emphatic NO.”

An irreducible champion of Auroville’s independence, Kailas aptly
stood steadfast on behalf of the Mother’s will. Despite this when, as part
of the celebrations for Sri Aurobindo’s Centenary Year, the government
of India submitted to UNESCO a somewhat milder resolution than the
one Kailas had prepared and kept fighting for, the Mother instructed
her to give up the fight and trust Dr. Adisheshia’s conciliatory words;
this episode is an eloquent example of the Mother’s pragmatic modus
operandi. The latter had written, Kailas reported, that that “he could
not insist on the Indian government for my draft, because they wanted
unanimity. They also felt that Sri Aurobindo was not so well known even
to most of the Indians to propose my draft, and it would unnecessarily
complicate the matter.”

VII

Always open to exploring new approaches, when it boiled down to the
material realisation of Auroville the Mother used whatever possibility
came to hand. Not only did she turn to UNESCO (and indirectly the
United Nations) as a channel to reach the world at large, but the Mother
also showed the same pragmatic attitude towards governments and any
organisation or institution that she felt may be of help. Her endorsement
of an Auroville Industrial Corporation to raise the needed capital to
build the town in five years — and her subsequent twelve page letter
to the Ford Foundation, in 1969, along with the one master plan she
approved, with the request to partially sponsor a feasibility study for
a town to be built in five years, adopting the systems engineering
approach, are significant examples of the Shakti in action, solidly
grounded in practical reality.

The following, taken from her signed letter to the Ford Foundation,
highlights the importance the Mother assigned to the Auroville project
being recommended by UNESCO:

“Auroville is unique — not only is it a city being constructed from scratch
but it combines the social, economic and physical aspects of the city
in a manner designed to enhance the evolutionary process in man. As
such the 14th General Conference of UNESCO held in Oct-Nov 1966
passed a resolution expressing the belief that the project will contribute
to international understanding and promotion of peace, and UNESCO
commended this project to those interested in UNESCO’s ideals.
Again in Oct-Nov 1968 at the 15th General Conference of UNESCO
a resolution was passed calling on Members and non-Governmental
Organization to participate in development of this project. For reference
copies of the resolution and other material relating to the interest of
UNESCO are enclosed.

(...)

Enclosures:

1. Auroville in UNESCO — 2 copies.

2. Resolution Number 4.131 Adopted in the 15" General

Conference of UNESCO on “AUROVILLE” held in Paris,
October 1968 — 2 copies”.

As an early Aurovilian commented, Auroville could have not been
founded materially, without the endorsement and active support of the

Vill

Government of India and UNESCO. This was the scenario, behind
the Mother’s resolve to secure UNESCO’s collaboration even prior
Auroville’s inception.

Could it have been otherwise? Hadn’t Sri Aurobindo withdrawn into his
room, where he spent the last twenty-four years of terrestrial existence,
having entrusted the organisation of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram to the
Mother, who presided over it down to the least detail, material as much
as spiritual? After the Ashram, Auroville, her ideal city named after Sri
Aurobindo, was the next realization. But a project of such a magnitude
demands the help and collaboration of the world at large. Hence the
Mother’s determination to pursue her dream necessitated her to adapt
whatever instruments she discovered or were offered to her on the way.
If this aspect of the Mother may appear disconcerting to some people,
justification for such an approach can be found in Sri Aurobindo’s
concluding remarks regarding the Avatar of India:

“There are many who perceive the necessity of the religious and moral
regeneration, who are inclined to turn from the prosaic details of politics
and commerce and regret that any guide and teacher of the nation should
stoop to mingle in them. That is a grievous error. The men who would
lead India must be catholic and many-sided. When the Avatar comes,
we would like to believe that he will be not only the religious guide, but
the political leader, the great educationist, the regenerator of society,
the captain of cooperative industry, with the soul of the poet, scholar
and artist.” °

Another poignant example of the Mother’s pragmatic approach is how
she turned the original proposal for a World University, launched in
1969 by the United Nations, and subsequently delegated to UNESCO
— its educational, scientific and cultural agency — into a major asset
of her Auroville project involving all-round, life-long education.
Following UNESCO’s appeal, Kailas submitted paper after paper on
education, the evolution of consciousness and other issues relating to
the proposed University. The outcome of Kailas’ relentless efforts was
that in 1974 UNESCO passed a resolution appealing to all its member-
states to contribute to the building of Auroville’s International Cultural
Pavilions. Unfortunately, all this came to a standstill due to the fight

6 SABCL, 2, Karmayogin, p. 214.
IX

between the Sri Aurobindo Society and the Auroville residents. With
respect to the proposed University and its Pavilions, Kailas told me
recently that UNESCO was so enthusiastic about it that, had a feasibility
project been submitted, it would have been possible to go ahead with
their execution independent of the realisation of the town itself. But
nothing was presented... This lapse has profoundly altered the fate of
the town-to-be, no less than its material construction using systems
engineering, which never happened either, because it was aborted on
the spot by a major figure the Mother had appointed for fundraising and
management.

For the sake of truth, it should not be forgotten that, at the apex of the
struggle with the Sri Aurobindo Society (SAS), the link the Mother had
established with UNESCO proved providential. As recorded by Savitra,
an early Aurovilian, in Reflections of an Evolutionary Activist:

«“*’.. This SAS legal battle with the GOI eventually rose through appeals
to the Indian Supreme Court where it would be heard as a Constitutional
Case defining the distinction between religion and spirituality. For if
it could be proven that Sri Aurobindo’s “teachings” and “practices”
constituted a religion, then the SAS regains control of Auroville. But
if the work of Sri Aurobindo, the Mother and Auroville constitute a
free form of secular spirituality whose integral practice is based on the
evolution of consciousness, then they lose.” As the trial raised “common
questions of constitutional importance”, these “were posted before the
Constitution Bench.”” The judgment delivered by the Constitution
Bench of the Supreme Court of India on 8 November 1982, uphelding
the Government’s contention that the teaching of Sri Aurobindo does
not constitute a religion, highlights as well the strategic importance of
UNESCO’s support.

The Mother’s guidance on Auroville’s relationship with UNESCO:
about the texts in this book

Inan attempt to come a little closer, at least intellectually, to the Mother’s
grand vision, I have put together material that may help enlarge our
struggle to come to terms with her wishes for Auroville. This book serves
a dual purpose. One is to document how determined the Mother was,
applying her force to secure UNESCO’s support and cooperation and,

Xx

by its international status, potential world recognition of her Auroville
megaproject — while at the same time allowing no interference from
UNESCO or any institutional body. At the same time, it provides a
poignant documentation that reminds us that being an Aurovilian truly
needs to revolve around unending education, emanating from within as
well as coming from without, being complementary to the achievement
of an effective human unity. This new way of life, which is intended to
encompass the whole micro-society of Auroville, is what particularly
appealed to UNESCO.

Of particular relevance is UNESCO’s endorsement, in 1974, of the
Mother’s wish for International Cultural Pavilions to be at the very core
of the University of Human Unity. The call for such a University, at first,
came from the United Nation, of which UNESCO is the educational,
scientific and cultural branch. Unending education that encompasses all
levels of being and explores all domains of knowledge is an essential
ingredient of the international city of Auroville, in both spirit and in
deeds. I reproduce the many papers Kailas wrote on the subject, often
in reply to the papers she was forwarded by leading personalities in an
ongoing discussion, along with the Mother’s comments. Such material,
focusing on education and the University of Human Unity, constitutes
the second part of the book. The documents outlined in this section
also call for reflection on the genius and soul of individual nations that,
while retaining their essential natures, are destined to evolve into a
unity, with the recognition that aiding this process is an essential aim of
Auroville and its University.

The archival material I present is taken from I am with you, vol. 2, by
Kailas Jhaveri. With Kailas’ kind permission I reproduce from this book,
written in an autobiographical style, only what strictly relates to her
interaction with UNESCO and others in position to hasten the material
realisation of Auroville, given the magnitude of the task of building this
city. The research theme is as vast as UNESCO’s fields of interest that
are shared with Auroville. The first part of the book documents Kailas
sustained efforts to involve and secure the help of the aforementioned
organisation, as well as other major national and international agencies,
and embassies from all over the world. These initiatives, along with the
Mother’s handwritten instructions and comments, are recorded in this
section. Entries on the United Nations and the Ford Foundation appear

XI

as well. The Mother was greatly appreciative of Kailas’ writings, on
which she often wrote comments, and encouraged her in every way.
In the autobiography is reproduced the facsimile of over hundred
handwritten messages and letters Kailas personally received from
the Mother; here I have published only those relating to her work for
UNESCO. Facsimiles of the messages are reproduced at the end of this
book; in the compiled text they are indicated with “F” plus the number.
The Mother often scribbled her messages on whatever paper was at
hand, eventually recycling it; unfortunately, after over four decades, to
ensure quality reproduction of her handwritten messages is not an easy
task. The texts, punctuated by the Mother’s handwritten messages, are
listed in chronological order, so as to present facts and UNESCO-related
major events as they unfolded during those early years. Preceding some
texts, I have purposely added footnotes and short explanations in italic.
I have used bold characters to indicate the Mother’s words. The number
at the end of each quotation indicates the page number in Kailas’ book.

As it emerges from the records in Kailas’ autobiography, those disciples
around the Mother — beginning with the team she had put in charge,
the Administrative Committee of Auroville — did not always grasp her
wisdom; at times, they even hampered the realisation of her initiatives.
This, too, is part of our history. Using Sri Aurobindo’s terminology
in The Human Cycle, when the infrarational still prevails, and the
transition from the objective to the subjective age is far from being
fulfilled, there is a long way to go before the Mother’s will for Auroville
can even commence to be realized. The Latin adage Natura non facit
saltus, nature makes no leaps, still largely applies. In the meantime it
helps to remember that “All life is yoga”.

It is not just a city we have to build. The call is for conscious individual
souls who, under the guidance of the psychic being, consecrate their
lives to the realisation of the ideals of Auroville, eliciting the gradual
emergence of the Auroville group-soul. Then the consciousness of
the city manifests, effortlessly, and the Mother’s vision and will for a
universal city of human unity, the Avatar’s model town, named after Sri
Aurobindo, comes true.

Paulette Hadnagy
paulette@auroville.org.in

XII

UNDER THE MOTHER’S DIRECT GUIDANCE

[What follows is a succinct chronicle of how Auroville connected to
UNESCO during the Mother’s lifetime, as recorded by Kailas Jhaveri
in her autobiography ‘I am with you’. Striking speeches by Dr. Malcolm
Adiseshiah, UNESCO Deputy Director, and interviews with him are
also reproduced in this section.]

1965

During this time an offer came from Navajata' to work with him for The
Mother’s project of Auroville. I said: “I will do it only if The Mother wants
me to do so. I will ask Her first.” He said that he had already asked The
Mother and She had told him: “It would be very good, if she is willing.
She writes very well.” I told The Mother that I would accept the work on
condition that I was allowed to work directly with Her. To this She agreed.

*

Sat, the name by which The Mother and I called Dr. Adiseshiah’, Deputy
Director-General of UNESCO, wrote to me that he was coming to
Bombay and asked me whether there was any possibility of my meeting
him there. He told me that he would of course pay for the expenses
involved. I wrote to The Mother about it and said:

“T am enclosing the UNESCO chronicle which outlines their project
of Appreciation of Cultures under the East-West Major project to
indicate how UNESCO can be helpful once we become an affiliated
member. And I feel that my relationship with Sat cannot be simply
personal, rather it has a wider significance perhaps for our work.”
The Mother marked the last sentence and replied on my letter:

“This seems correct. At any rate you can go to meet him and see
what happens. With love and blessings.” Fl

1 The Secretary of the Sri Aurobindo Society, of which the Mother was the President.
2 Kailas knew Dr. Adiseshiah since her years in New York, where she worked at the
United Nations’ information department.

. This was my first meeting with him after I came to the
Ashram. He asked me about my Ashram life. For, he felt
that I was more suited for New York than for an Ashram life.
I explained to him how our Ashram life was radically different from
that of the traditional Ashram or religious convent and monastery since
it was a spiritual endeavour to transform and reorganise life on the
basis of the Truth of Existence. So, our Ashram included many of the
activities of life. I explained to him that the Ashram came into existence
after six years of The Mother’s final arrival and it was a spontaneous
creation as The Mother led the disciples towards the evolution of life
which, as Sri Aurobindo said, ‘would in the final end be moved by a
higher spiritual consciousness and embody a greater life of the spirit.’
Then, I talked about the concept of Auroville as an international city
whose aim was to realise human unity in diversity. After hearing about
the Auroville project, he felt that my decision to join the Ashram was
perhaps right though difficult. I asked him if UNESCO could help in
this project. He suggested that we should approach UNESCO through
the government of India. I told him that we would not like the Indian
government or UNESCO to interfere in our project. He then suggested
that we should associate the Auroville project with UNESCO through
the affiliation of the Society as a non-governmental organisation with
UNESCO. It was a pleasant and fruitful meeting. When I reported to the
Mother about our meeting, She was very pleasedand gave mea meditation
for about fifteen minutes. She said: Trés bien! I did my pranams and
got up. She gave me the flower of Divine Grace and I left. 27-31

The first [Auroville] plot bought was an old custom office on the
earlier border between the states of Pondicherry and Tamilnadu. The
Mother gave the name of Promesse to this land, where some of the
pioneers, inspired by Her vision, came to settle and participate in this
work. In the beginning of the materialisation of this project I was sent
to New Delhi to contact the important embassies and the ministries of
our government. While I was doing this work, a telegram came from
Navajata: “Mother approves your going to Bhopal and Lucknow. Sends
blessings.” Somehow I didn’t feel like going to Bhopal and Lucknow,

so I returned. I was asked again by Navajata to go to different States
of India — first to Gujarat — to raise funds for Auroville. I wrote to The
Mother explaining my position and asked for Her guidance. Keeping
the first page of my letter, She answered on the second page:

“You are quite right — the time for running about is over for you and
it is much better that you should remain here quietly. You can use
my letter as a reply. With my love and blessings”. 37-8, F2

1966

I was put in charge of the UNESCO Section of Sri Aurobindo Society,
but practically, I had no office, no table, no chair, no almirah', no
typewriter, no secretary and no money. I learned to use any means
available. For instance, I carried out my correspondence, using the
Society’s typewriter after the office hours, sometimes working till
after midnight and filing my papers at home in my Ashram almirahs.
Sometimes I gave my papers for typing to Doreen, Navajata’s
excellent secretary. She was faultless and superb in her execution.
It seemed that I was given responsibilities, but sometimes I had to
find my own means to carry them out. Even to go to Bombay, Madras,
Delhi, or to Paris for the UNESCO conference, I had to find the finances
or the transport needed. And the Divine provided me with whatever
was needed from unexpected sources. Thus, I learned to depend on
nothing and nobody except the Divine. This taught me never to worry
or agitate but to keep my cool under all circumstances, with complete
trust in the Divine Grace, knowing that the Divine is aware of every
aspect of my needs, of what is to be done and how it is to be done. 84-5

Besides painting and work with Navajata, I did many compilations
during this period. ‘The Reshaping of Humanity’ is one of the early
ones which was published in the special issue on Culture, besides
another one on ‘Culture, Peace and International Co-operation’ done
for UNESCO which also came out in the same issue of Mother
India?, September 1966. Besides, other important compilations on
Auroville were: ‘Religion and Spirituality’, ‘On Human Unity,’ ‘The

1 Cupboard.
2 The monthly cultural review of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

Aim of Auroville,’ ‘Matrimandir’, ‘Auroville and Education’ for
the U.N.’s project of World University and Cultural Pavilions, ‘Sri
Aurobindo and The Future,’ some of which will be seen later. Most
of them were also printed later in the issues of Mother India. 90

Regarding the compilation on ‘Culture, Peace and International
Co-operation’, which I did for UNESCO, there is an interesting
comment of The Mother. Dr. Indrasen-ji had sent me a circular that
had come from UNESCO asking affiliated organisations to submit
a paper on this subject. I asked The Mother if I could prepare a
compilation based on Sri Aurobindo’s and Her writings. She replied:
“Leave me out. Sri Aurobindo is enough for UNESCO.” 104

On the basis of my talk with Dr. Adiseshiah in 1965, I told the Mother
that since Auroville was to be an international township, we should
work for this project through UNESCO. For this I proposed that the
Society should be affiliated with UNESCO as a non-governmental
organisation. She appreciated this idea. So when Navajata was going to
Delhi, I asked him to meet the President of the Indian National Council
for UNESCO for this purpose. He came back and said that it was
not possible since UNESCO did not accept affiliation with religious
organisations. I said: “We are not a religious organisation but a spiritual
one. We should explain them the difference between the two.” He said:
“T put you in charge. You do it.” I prepared a paper on ‘Religion and
Spirituality,’ pointing out the difference between the two in the light
of Sri Aurobindo and stated that our aim covered the whole of life, its
relationships and activities on the spiritual basis, the aim of Auroville
being the realisation of Human Unity. To begin with we were admitted
in 1966 to the ‘C’ category of relationship, which meant an exchange of
information of our mutual activities. This was the beginning of a work
that was to occupy a major part of my life in the Ashram until 1975.

I was asked to go to Delhi to contact the Embassies about the project
of Auroville. In response The Mother sent me a card with the following
words: “Kailas, my love and blessings are with you.” When I went
to Delhi, it occurred to me that I needed some designation to approach

the Embassies. So, I wrote to Navajata. He sent me a telegram saying
that the Mother had designated me as ‘Secretary-in-charge, UNESCO
section.’ A second telegram arrived, conveying the Mother’s approval to
contact the Ford Foundation for funds. F3& 4

I contacted a few important embassies representing all the six
continents. I also met Dr. Prem Kirpal, President of the Indian National
Commission for UNESCO. Then, I worked together with Mr. Salah-
El-Din Tewfik, UNESCO’s representative in New Delhi. He was from
Egypt and we worked out a resolution for Auroville to be proposed by
the Government of India for UNESCO’s General Conference in Paris.
We offered the project of Auroville as a token of our collaboration with
the aims of UNESCO for its 20" anniversary celebration.

I also met the director of the Ford Foundation. He responded
enthusiastically to the project of Auroville, saying it was a unique one,
adding: “Auroville has all the potential to contribute in a living way to
peace, unity and international co-operation. But the Foundation cannot
give the seed money. The project would have to go a little further in its
implementation before it can be considered.”

Later, in 1966, Shree E. Pouschpa Dass from India, who was the
Director of the Division of Cultural Development at UNESCO,
eloquently presented the resolution which I had prepared with Salah-
El-Din Tewfik. Here is the first resolution on Auroville, unanimously
passed in November 1966 by the General Conference of UNESCO:

“The General Conference,

Being appraised that, in connection with the commemoration of
the twentieth anniversary of UNESCO, the Sri Aurobindo Society,
Pondicherry, India, a non-governmental organisation affiliated to the
Indian National Commission for UNESCO, proposes to set up a cultural
township known as ‘Auroville’ where people of different countries will
live together in harmony in one community and engage in cultural,
educational, scientific and other pursuits,

Noting that the township will have pavilions intended to represent
the cultures of the world, not only intellectually but also by presenting
different schools of architecture, painting, sculpture, music, etc. as part

5

of a way of living,

Appreciating that one of the aims of Auroville will be to bring
together in close juxtaposition the values and ideals of different
civilisations and cultures,

Expresses the belief that the project will contribute to international
understanding and_ promotion of peace and commends it to those
interested in UNESCO’s ideals.”

Now towards the end of December of 1966, Dr. Adiseshiah gave me a
surprise visit at noon from Madras and had lunch with me. He enquired
about my life at the Ashram and I said that it suited me perfectly. I
informed him about the progress of our new project of the international
township of Auroville. 106-7

1967

On the 2™ January 1967, Dr. Adiseshiah was coming to see me. I wrote
to The Mother as follows:

“.sat is coming here late tomorrow morning. Can I bring him to You
in the afternoon? Shall we show him different departments of our
activities? I know he would be interested. But is it possible to arrange
it? I think he would be leaving the same day. Please advise. With joy in
Thee, ever Thy own.”

The Mother answered thus:

‘As there is no time for both, better show him some activities than
take him to me. Blessings.”

So, I wrote again: “... I know that given a choice — rather Your Grace —
Sat would like to see You first. And would it not give him a new vision
of seeing things, activities and people around here! He is coming at
10:30 a.m. and I will certainly take him to our Centre of Education if
Pavitra! agrees. For, that’s the field he is most interested in. And I will
ask him to come again before he leaves for Paris, which he himself
would like to do since now he has become one of us, believing in our
aim and ways of working. Would the Grace of The Mother permit me to
bring him to Her presence? I know he would be grateful. With humility

1 An early sadhak, whom the Mother had appointed director of the Centre of Education,
and also general secretary of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

6

and love, Ever Thy own.”

The Mother replied:

“If you come with him this morning at 11 o’clock, I shall
see you.” FS

I took him to The Mother and stood on one side as this was his first
meeting with The Mother. A few minutes passed in silence as She
concentrated. No words were spoken. But I felt as if the silent vibration
of Her Force took the current of Her blessings to the highest and inmost
depths of his being. He seemed to become visibly a changed person!
She then called me and asked: “Would you take him to our Centre of
Education?” I replied: “Certainly, Mother.” She then gave us each a rose
and said: “Aurevoir!” We said: “Au revoir, Douce Mere!” too and parted.

I showed him our Centre of Education and explained to him our free
system of education, the ratio between the students and teacher being
ten to one, at the most. I also told him that the freedom of choice was
given with respect to certain subjects and the general emphasis was on
the growth of the soul rather than on the academic standard. He was
quite impressed with this new approach to education and the method of
education which was true to the spirit of educing the best in the individual
being. I also asked him if the Society could not be promoted to B category
of consultative relationship with UNESCO in view of Auroville having
been proposed as a project to celebrate the 20" anniversary of UNESCO
in 1966. He said that we should do it through the Indian Delegation to
UNESCO before the General Conference in 1968. 108-9

1968

On 24" January, 1968, I wrote to The Mother as follows:

“... I feel a sort of inner impulsion to see Sat before he leaves for Paris
and perhaps bring him closer to You in his consciousness and love so
that when he works for Auroville, he works for You. I do not say that I
can achieve this by my unaided strength and I rely solely on Your Force
which does not depend on this instrument either. But I ask only because
I have been feeling this persistent impulsion since a few days. And I
am prepared to go only if this is Your Will. Please advise. With loving

7

surrender, ever Ta petite.”
The Mother replied:

“Your feeling is right. If you can meet him in Madras, go
with my help and blessings, and do what you want to do.
With love.” F6

I went to Madras and met him. We discussed the project of Auroville and
I informed him about the proposed foundation on the 28" February and
the details of the ceremony to take place. He was very much impressed
by The Mother’s vision and said that his best wishes were with us. Also I
mentioned to him the importance of the following day, the 29" February,
since it was on this day in 1956 that the Supramental Force and Light
came down upon the earth. 123-4

*

In 1968, we were preparing for the Foundation of Auroville. It was
decided that a boy and a girl below twenty-five years of age would come
from each country, carrying the soil and ribbons of the colours in the
flag of their country. I wrote to The Mother on the twelfth January, 1968:

“<..Navajata asked me this morning if I could go to Delhi for about
five days and contact the different embassies regarding the participation
of the youth of their respective country for the inauguration ceremony
of Auroville planned for the 28" February. I write this because You
told me that the time for running about was over for me. Personally,
I feel that we have provided all the facilities and extended our
hospitality. So their response has to be spontaneous. In fact some
have already responded. Now, do You feel this to be necessary? ...”

The Mother replied:

“You must go to Delhi only if you feel that you can do the
work effectively and usefully. In any case, my blessings are
with you.” F7

After seeing The Mother and receiving Her blessings, I went to Delhi
to do my appointed work. I also invited Mr. Salah-El-Din Tewfik, the

8

UNESCO representative for India, to come for the inauguration of
Auroville and its foundation ceremony. 125-6

... In the afternoon of the 28" fon Auroville Foundation Day], I took
Salah-El-Din Tewfik to The Mother. I had sent The Mother’s book of
Prayers and Meditations to Her to be given to him. When he knelt
before Her with joined hands, The Mother gave him this book and
looked into his eyes. Then, She gave us the roses. When we returned to
my house from the meeting, he confided to me: “I have never bowed
to another human being. But when I looked at Her, very spontaneously
my heart sang: ‘Thou art the One! Thou art great! Thou alone art!’ This
sacred salutation I give to no one else but to Allah during my prayer.
Thank you for this meeting.” He then opened the book and said: “Thank
you again. J shall treasure this gift.”

After the celebration and a luncheon gathering, the youth were called
for a discussion in the afternoon. The most pertinent and interesting
question asked was: “If there are no rules and no single authority, who
would guide the project?” The Mother’s answer is succinct and clear:
“The Supreme Lord!” The second question was: “If people are not ruled
by laws, how would there be order?” I remember very well that Salah-
El-Din Tewfik spontaneously answered: “By obeying the Truth!” “How
does one know the Truth?” was the next query. “Well, that is the supreme
work that each individual is supposed to do freely, honestly and sincerely
and with all the goodwill possible.” The meeting ended by passing a
resolution prepared by the Youth with the help of Salah-El-Din Tewfik.

In the evening a second general meeting took place where Mr. Tewfik
addressed the gathering. He emphasised the aim of Auroville — Human
Unity —and outlined its prominent features. He described how UNESCO
was trying to achieve peace, unity and co-operation through science,
culture and education. Quoting from the charter of UNESCO, he said:
“Wars are made in the minds of men and so the defenses of peace must
be constructed in the minds of men too.” Then he spoke of some of the
common objectives before Auroville and UNESCO for which a mutual
collaboration was necessary.

Mrs. Satpathy proposed a resolution which I was asked to second.
Before doing so, I pointed out that mind was not capable of solving the

2

problem of war and peace, nor of achieving human unity. What was
needed was to ascend to a step higher than the mental consciousness,
which even at best, is divisive and half-lit. So the aim of Auroville, as
well as that of UNESCO for human unity, could only be realised by
a change of consciousness, which is universal in its principle and the
law of its action. Hence it was imperative to remember that though
Auroville belonged to the whole of humanity, to live in Auroville
one had to become “a willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.”
I then seconded the resolution. 129-30

[Successively, Kailas forwarded to UNESCO a paper based on Sri
Aurobindo’s writings, “Auroville and the Ideal of Human Unity”. The
International Cultural Pavilions project was mentioned for the first
time. This paper is reproduced in the chapter “Auroville is education”. ]

In March, I told The Mother about my idea of going to Delhi to meet Sat
for my work for Auroville. She wrote to me on 6" March a very personal
letter which She asked me not to reveal, giving me Her instructions to
guide my action and put the seal of ‘all Her Love and Blessings,’ adding
that the idea of going to Delhi for my work with UNESCO was good.

So, I went to Delhi and stayed with Mrs. Nandini Satpathy, then Minister
of Information and Broadcasting. I contacted the President of the Indian
National Commission for UNESCO, Mr. Prem Kirpal! and discussed
with him the possibility of promoting the Society to the B category of
affiliation, giving it a consultative status with UNESCO. I also worked
with Mr. Tewfik for a second resolution on Auroville. Unquestionably,
The Mother’s Force and guidance in everything was concretely felt
throughout my stay and my work in Delhi.

Mr. Tewfik had invited me to the party he was giving for Dr. Adiseshiah.
The car he sent for him picked me up too. There was a big gathering and
we were as if divided between two groups: one around Dr. Adiseshiah
and the other around me. Mr.Tewfik was moving from one to the other,
assisting in the conversation. For the first time the invitees came to know
about Auroville as an international township which was being developed

1 President of the Indian National Commission for UNESCO.
10

on a spiritual basis. Mrs. Satpathy had also arranged a short talk on
Auroville by Dr. Adiseshiah to introduce Auroville on television. He
exalted the project beautifully and emphasised its importance both for
India and for the world. 137-8

I began to feel that my work with UNESCO would come to an end later
with Sat’s retirement in 1970, so I wrote the following to be sure of my
understanding:

“Mother Divine: Ever since I left the UNESCO work there is a constant
pressure on me from all sides, and especially since the letters of X for
a Design for Living and to U Thant for the World University, inviting
a committee of educationists and our application for B category of
relationship with UNESCO, all of which seemed undiplomatic and
unnecessary...”

The Mother’s reply came in large and bold handwriting:

“Do not worry. After all it is the Supreme Lord who
organises everything in you and in the others — and each
one plays his role, convinced that it is the only Truth, while

all_ are true _in the Supreme. With love and blessings.” F8

I wrote to The Mother on 4" December, 1968:

“*.. Your answer is so refreshing and reassuring. For in the depths of my
heart I do not worry. I realise more and more how the Lord inspires and
guides and moves everything so perfectly. ...”

Here is The Mother’s beautiful reply:

“Kach one is meant to represent one aspect of the Truth which
realises itself by the perfect union of all the aspects. But each
individual has the possibility of becoming, by a conscious union
with the Supreme, conscious of His Consciousness, and thus
to know at once the part he has to play and the whole of the
play. This is the supreme realisation. Blessings.” 145-7, F9

In December 1968, Dr. Adiseshiah, Deputy Director-General of
UNESCO, was invited as chairman of the conference on Adult Education

11

to be held in Pondicherry. He informed me about it. He planned to have
dinner at my house on all the three days. I wrote a note to The Mother
as follows:

“... In August Sat had written to me saying that he would be glad if he
could see You when he comes to Pondicherry. He will be here for three
days — 22", 23™ and 24" — but I don’t know when he would arrive on
the 22"4, Can he come to You on the 23" or the 24", any time at Your
convenience?” The Mother asked Her attendant to mark 24" and write:
“At 10 a.m. with you.” I asked further: “He would like to have dinner
with me every evening. What is Your Will?”

The Mother told Her attendant to write: “C’est bon. (It’s good).” ...

I took him to The Mother in the morning of the 24". He kneeled before
Her after me. She looked into his eyes, concentrated and gave him a
red rose and The Divine s Grace [flower]. Then, The Mother gave me a
white rose and Satchidananda [flower]. During the conference on Adult
Education which he addressed as its chairman, he said besides many
other things:

“If man’s purpose, as I believe, is to extend the limitless horizons of his
mind and soul, to move forward from man the animal to man the divine,
then there can be no interregnum, no hiatus in his upward, onward
march. That march — slow, steep and tortuous — leads slowly but surely
to his destiny.”

It was attended by Pavitra-da and André, The Mother’s son. When they
reported on it to The Mother, She remarked:

“He is very open to my Force. Many good things will come from his
contact with Kailas.”

A symposium on Auroville was to be held at the Theatre after the
conference. So I wrote to The Mother, the day before the Symposium:

“.. Navajata has asked me to give a ten-minute talk on Auroville
and the Ideal of Human Unity for a radio-symposium on UNESCO
and Auroville where Sat will be the moderator... I was very hesitant

12

since these days I feel shy about giving talks, but when he insisted,
somehow I accepted it. Now I pray for Your guidance and blessings so
that I be only an instrument of Your vision and voice. Ever with love
and humility, Ta petite.” To this She wrote on the bottom of the letter:

“It is all right. Love and blessings.”

This symposium on Auroville was arranged by All India Radio,
Pondicherry, on the 28" December, 1968. It was held in the Ashram
Theatre. Dr. Adiseshiah was invited to chair it. Navajata gave an overall
picture of Auroville. Kireet Joshi! spoke on Education in Auroville, Mrs.
Anjani Dayananda’ on Administration, Gilbert? on the international
aspect of Auroville, Gloria* spoke on architecture and I spoke on the
cultural aspect and human unity in Auroville on the spiritual basis. Dr.
Adiseshiah summed up the presentations with these inspired comments:

“’..Well my friends, does all this sound too good to be true? Do you
feel what I felt when I first read Jules Verne? But Jules Verne has come
true today with the successful visit of the three astronauts to the moon
and their splash-down in the Pacific yesterday. And so a fiction, the
spiritual fiction of Auroville that we have heard today is being built into
a reality on this platform, in the audience and outside this audience...

I ask whether we go back with the feeling that this is too good to
be true, that this is a vision, that this is an ideal, that this is a dream?
Well, apart from what Apollo 8 demonstrated that yesterday’s dream
is today’s reality, I want to tell you that one lesson that we are
considering in the Conference and the Seminar that many others are
attending on Adult Education, is that there is no alternative way we
have heard of, if peace, unity, harmony are realisable, because we
in UNESCO, and outside Auroville, have tried other ways of living
together and we have seen them ending in stark tragedy. We are told
that the precision bombing of London during the world war by the
German aviators was possible, because the pilots were British Council
Fellowship holders studying in Oxford, Cambridge and London, and

1 At that time, the registrar of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education.

2 The Chief Secretary of Pondicherry, and a member of the Auroville Administrative
Committee.

3 An early Aurovilian, who paid for the early huts settlement in Aspiration.

4 An Aurovilian architect and the wife of Piero Cicionesi, the Italian architect who will
be put in charge of the material execution of the Matrimandir.

13

knew precisely what to bomb, how to bomb and where to bomb.

We know that bringing people together, alas, does not lead to
human unity and universal harmony. We also know that international
understanding — when people begin really to understand — does not
necessarily lead to peace and understanding. It is when Stalin understood
what his other allies were after, from 1946 — after Potsdam, — and when
the allies — the British, the Americans and the French — understood what
Stalin was after, it is when there was a clearer understanding of each
other’s motives and thoughts that the cold war was started.

We have tried in UNESCO, and the UNESCO world, which
represents the plusses and the minuses of humanity, which represents
the world as it is and not the world as it can be or should be, we have
tried every way and we have failed.

And so now, we turn to Auroville, and to its foundation, the firm
foundation on which its human unity, its universal harmony, is to be
built. That foundation is Man, Man in all his glory, in his divinity, in his
unfathomable depths which he can reach, and which Auroville will make
it possible for man from everywhere... to achieve. It is not surprising
therefore that UNESCO has embraced Auroville as a programme which
embodies its major and fundamental purposes.

The fifteenth General Conference of UNESCO attended by its 125
member-states, which ended this month and from which I am coming
almost directly to you, adopted unanimously the resolution, making
Auroville the concern of every one of the member-states of the world
and the responsibility of every man, woman and child in these member
countries.

And so, on behalf of UNESCO, on behalf of all of you present here,
and not present here, I hail Auroville, its conception and realisation as
a hope for all of us, and particularly for our children, for our youth,
who are disillusioned with the world that we have built for them, and
who will find in Auroville as they found at the time of its foundation
ceremony, a living symbol, inspiring them to live the life to which they
are called.”

It was a significant and a memorable occasion. The Mother was
very happy to hear about this event. Dr. Adiseshiah helped in
promoting the project of Auroville in many ways, proving the
truth of The Mother’s comment about him that many good things

14

would come out of his visit. The Mother was very particular about
my relation with Dr. Adiseshiah, as we shall see later. 147-151

Later in December of the same year, Dr. Adiseshiah had come to Delhi
and I felt consistently that I should go and meet him, though I had no
idea of the work to be done. So I wrote what I felt to The Mother and
She replied as follows: “All right. Love and blessings.”

Well I had no money to fly to Delhi, but a friend, Purnima Hazarat, who
was visiting the Ashram from Baroda asked me: “How much do you
require?” I said: “At least 3000/-.” She spontaneously gave me the money.
So I flew to Delhi and booked a room in the same hotel as Dr. Adiseshiah.

The following morning Nanda, a disciple of The Mother and Sri
Aurobindo, who worked in the television section of Doordarshan, came
to see me and said: “Kailas, do you know that Mrs. Nandini Satpathy,
— then the Minister of Information and Broadcasting —, has arranged
tomorrow an interview of Dr. Adiseshiah by Dr. Melville de Mello on
Auroville?” I said: “No, but would you do me a favour? I would like
to write the questions for this interview. Would you give them to Dr. de
Mello?” He asked, laughing: “Do you know that Dr. de Mello is a very
famous interviewer who has done many such interviews of diplomats
and dignitaries like Nehru and others? I would be considered a fool to
take questions to him, prepared by you or anybody else for that matter.”
I said: “I know all that. But first of all, if anybody would be considered
as a fool, it is | who would be so considered and not you. Would you not
do it for The Mother?” He said: “I will do it if you so insist, but I don’t
think it would work.” I said: “That’s a different matter. I will give you
the questions tomorrow morning.” On this note we parted.

You would not believe, but I had an absolutely silent mind and ten
questions came pouring down. I got them typed with two copies. When
he came, I gave him the paper, and asked him: “If you would kindly
do me another favour, I would be very thankful. Could you ask Dr.
de Mello if I could be present at the interview?” He laughed again.
Naturally, before these two great men I was nothing and nobody. But
he agreed.

15

Now, when the car came to pick up Dr. Adiseshiah, it picked me up too.
And I was sitting with Dr. de Mello across from Dr. Adiseshiah with a
glass partition between us. Dr. de Mello asked every question I had put
without a change of a single word except adding the word of address to
Dr. Adiseshiah. The Mother’s Force was concretely felt as he answered
the questions, again proving The Mother’s incisive perception.

At the end of the interview, I asked Dr. de Mello if I could have a copy of
the tape of the interview. He was surprised at my request and said: “But,
my dear, we do not let anyone have a copy before it is broadcast.” I said:
“T know that, but I would play it only before The Mother, I promise.”
He relented, but said: “We have to edit it. When are you leaving?” I
said: “The day after tomorrow.” He asked: “Are you coming to Mrs.
Satpathy’s party tonight? I will see if I can have it edited and bring it
there for you.” I said: “Yes! Thank you!” And we parted.

He brought the tape and gave it to me. ... Now I wanted to play the tape
before The Mother and asked Her for an interview. She significantly
called me on Mahasaraswati’s day. ... Richard' and I went with a
taperecorder and played the tape for Her. She listened to it attentively
and even smiled as She heard the tape. She held my hands and said with
a pleased look in Her eyes: “Kailas, do you know what I felt when I
listened to the interview?” I was anxiously waiting to hear what She had
to say. The Mother said with great force:

“A very powerful being came down and tied Auroville to the ground.
It was needed and he did it. Now, Auroville will be a reality and the
world will see it.”

I could not be happier. I remained there for a few moments.
She gave us roses and said: “Au _ revoir.” And we left.
This interview was to be broadcast on 28" February 1969, the first
anniversary of Auroville. It appeared later in the 1970 July issue of
Mother India. ... 151-4

The Interview of Dr. Adiseshiah on Auroville

Melville de Mello: Dr. Adiseshiah, we are very happy to welcome you
once again to our studios. As you know, it is always a pleasure to be

1 The ashramite Richard Pearson, Kailas’ spiritual companion.

16

able to bring your voice, your views and your ideas to listeners in India.
Now, at the Auroville- UNESCO Symposium in Pondicherry, you spoke
of Auroville as a hope for humanity to come out of its present chaos.
Would you like to elaborate on that statement of yours?

Dr. Adiseshiah: Yes, but first I want to reciprocate your kind words
by greeting you and the people of India and thanking you all for the
kindness I have received on this, my annual official visit to my own
homeland as the Deputy Director General of UNESCO and to give the
Government, the President, the Cabinet and the leaders and people of
this country UNESCO’s very good wishes for 1969. You have referred
to what I said in Pondicherry at a symposium organised by AIR on
Auroville, where I characterised Auroville, the plan and programme for
an International City to be established on the outskirts of Pondicherry,
as the hope for humanity, as a means of deliverance from the present
chaos. The political chaos, I think, is evident. One has only to refer to
Vietnam, to Biafra, to West Asia and no more to see that. In spite of
the hopes of humanity embodied in the United Nations’ Charter and
the UNESCO Constitution, I don’t think that since the end of the last
War we have had one single day when the world has been free from
war. The confusion in the economic and social realms is also obvious.
This great country was host to Unctad, and I believe that Unctad was
a demonstration of the economic confusion and the economic chaos in
the world, where the curious spectacle of the rich getting richer and the
poor getting poorer daily was demonstrated, and Unctad could do little
about it. And so one could go on. And even education, which is the
special domain of UNESCO, and deals with men’s minds, with men’s
spirits — even education, as it has so far been practiced has not led to
peace, has not led to harmony and understanding. The people who
start wars are not the illiterate farmers, are not the ignorant workers in
Europe or America, the people who burn buses and trams in our country
are not the illiterates, and since the torch-bearer of this confusion is
the educated elite, UNESCO’s responsibility for seeing what kind of
education should be developed is, therefore, an urgent one. And when I
spoke of Auroville as being a hope, I had this very much in mind.

Q. You also said that by unanimously adopting the resolution on
Auroville, the General Conference of UNESCO made the Auroville
project the concern and responsibility of every man, woman and child
in every one of its hundred and twenty five member-states. Now how

17

do you think this responsibility can be best fulfilled, and what steps will
UNESCO take to stimulate the awareness of this concern in order to
fulfill this responsibility?

Dr. Adiseshiah: Well, the first task here is for every member-state,
and every man, woman, and child in the member-state, to understand
Auroville as the international city where the ideals that we have been so
long seeking for, of peace and harmony, of human unity, will be realised
— realised very concretely, not simply as resolutions, as declarations, as
flag-waving, but through the schools, through the colleges, through the
workshops, through the factories, through the farms and through the
international airports which will bring men and women from all over
the world. So the first thing that UNESCO will help member-states to
do — and is already doing — is to understand the Auroville programme,
and then see what of this programme would be the responsibility of a
government, or an organisation, or a university, or an individual.

Q. In the light of your experience of the present-day educational
system, all over the world, what strikes you as unique in the proposed
free-progress Auroville system of education?

Dr. Adiseshiah: The Auroville system of education, by the way, is
not a paper plan; it is already being worked out in the International
Centre of Education which is run by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in
Pondicherry. If I am not mistaken, I think it has been run for the last
twenty years. There, in that institution, the dream has become a reality,
the dream of the pedagogue, the dream of the philosopher for the free
development of the human mind, — for the absence of compulsion on
the child, for a system of learning not ridden by the fear and the terror
of the examination, — for seeking and searching for what a person, a
child or an adult wants to know and not what he is forced to learn by
a curriculum and syllabus which is out-dated, has no relation to the
world we are living in. And the world we are living in is a world which
is frighteningly progressive, frighteningly fast-moving. We had last
month the splash-down of the three astronauts who have visited the
moon; we had last week Zond-6 being sped on its way to Venus, and
we had last night the docking of Soyuz-4 and Soyuz-5. Well, that is the
kind of world we are living in, and the educational system that Auroville
will have, which is now being already developed and perfected, is the
system in which every man, woman and child will learn to live, and live
to learn, freely and harmoniously.

18

Q. Sir, in view of the fact that UNESCO is intensifying its efforts
in educational research and programmes, how do you think UNESCO
should, could or would help in the Auroville project of a World
University?

Dr. Adiseshiah: I must tell you frankly we have not come to that
stage yet in UNESCO. We have not yet thought of a way through, of
what we will do in the individual projects that constitute Auroville. But I
can say that just as the basic pedagogy, the psychology and the spiritual
foundation of the educational system of Auroville, which I have just
referred to, is that of UNESCO, embodied in UNESCO’s Charter which
we are striving after, which we have not been able to realise elsewhere,
so too is the programme for a World University where men and women
at the highest level, the intellectual elite of the world, could be banded
together, not to split the atom and produce new bombs, not simply to
explore space in complete secrecy, but to explore the heart of man and
the minds of men in order to promote knowledge, to build development
in our under-developed countries in the third world, and to assure peace.

Q. It is said that Auroville, by its very ideology, architecture and
aims, would present a spontaneous design of integrated living, the
kind that is sought after in the UNESCO resolutions on the Design for
Living. How far do you think this will be realised in Auroville?

Dr. Adiseshiah: Now you touch on another programme of UNESCO
for which we are grateful to this country. It was at the International
Symposium held here in 1966 in New Delhi, to commemorate the
life and contribution of Jawaharlal Nehru, that this great programme
called the ‘Design for Living’ was initiated. It is a programme, an
inter-disciplinary, an international programme for restoring man’s lost
equilibrium with Nature. Well, we are making a start on this programme
and it is our hope that Auroville will be one demonstration of this large
programme which will once more restore to man his primacy over the
world which he inhabits, and bring him into equilibrium with Nature
and with his environment, whether it be the rural countryside or the
urban living conditions which characterise so many of our countries.

Q. What gives you the hope that Auroville will be a site for material
and spiritual researches and of endless progress as its Charter declares?

Dr. Adiseshiah: Well, I think it is the Aurovillians whom I met, that
are the basis of my hope. They remind me of the astronauts and the
cosmonauts, who, as you know, spend years training themselves for

19

the tremendous task that they have to undertake. The Aurovillians are
the cosmonauts and astronauts of this new international city of hope, of
development, of prosperity and of charity. And it is their spirit which
I have seen for myself, the training which they are undergoing and the
concrete pilot-work which they are doing now in actually digging the
foundations of this great city, that are for me the basis of what you call
my hope for Auroville.

Q. If I can project that question a little further, Sir, would you assess
the importance of Auroville for India and the world?

Dr. Adiseshiah: For India, I believe that we need, as a country,
everything that can help us to live together as a people with many
different cultural backgrounds, religious backgrounds and _ social
backgrounds. Our programme for national integration is one expression
of this, and I believe that in Auroville we shall have yet another start, a
start based on the fundamental unity of the human mind and of human
consciousness for the flowering of the kind of unity which our country
needs so desperately today. And I have no doubt that we will find it.
I am not one who is discouraged or is pessimistic about our future in
spite of the daily riots and strikes and difficulties — social, economic
and political — that we face. I think this is a transitional phase. And
in that phase I believe Auroville is one of the pilots that can lead us
on to that land of unity where we can all join together in working for
the development of our country which is our only and major task. As
far as the world is concerned, in addition to development, the need for
peace does not require any repeating on my part. I believe it is the peace
passing beyond the economic and political arrangements on which the
present uneasy truce relies, it is the peace based on the consciousness of
men as men, the certainties in our hearts and spirits, on which Auroville
and its programme are founded, that will assure the peace we are
looking for in the world.

Q. Sir, in view of the vast programmes and importance of Auroville
as a universal, cultural township, aiming to synthesise the cultures of
all nations and paving a way for human unity, don’t you think that
UNESCO should give Auroville a corresponding importance and
emphasis in its budgetary programme, especially when it is destined to
play such an important part in the fate of humanity, showing a model
way of living together in peace and progressive harmony?

Dr. Adiseshiah: Yes. I think what you are getting at is that UNESCO

20

should take the kind of action we have taken in the last five years in
restoring the famous temples of Abu Simbel in Nubia in the United
Arab Republic where we brought together over sixty countries which
contributed forty million dollars for saving these precious monuments
which belong to all mankind. Yes, I believe it will come, but it will
come only when the member-states of UNESCO, and the men and
women and children behind the member-states and the organisations
in the member-states, begin to be conscious of the reality of Auroville.
I would not rush an international campaign now for Auroville through
UNESCO. It might, in the wrong way, at the wrong moment, provoke
difficulties rather than help in the realisation of the ideals; for do not
forget that when mankind came to save the Nubian monuments, the
famous temples of Abu Simbel, it was at the last moment when they
were going to be submerged. When, therefore, we shall reach such a
stage, the world will turn towards Auroville, or rather the Aurovilles,
because Auroville will have to spread, Auroville will not be confined
simply to Pondicherry. If it is, it will fail. It will be a world movement,
and when the critical moment comes, I have no doubt that UNESCO
will take the kind of campaign leadership, which is implied by what
you are asking me.

Q. Now what steps would you like the Government of India, as
the sponsor of the Resolution, to take in order to fulfill its part in the
responsibility?

Dr. Adiseshiah: I have been talking to the Minister of Education, to
members of the Planning Commission here, and I will mention this also
to the President whom I am seeing tomorrow. I have talked to the Chief
Minister of Madras and the Governor of Pondicherry. The first thing to do
is to assign the land on which this International City is going to be built.
This is the task for the Madras Government mainly, and the Pondicherry
Government. And then, I think that the Government of India will have
to come forward with a certain amount of financial contribution, as well
as the fourteen State Governments, for erecting their state pavilions and
the institutions which would be in the interest of this country. This is
not simply charity, just for charity’s sake; it will be in the interest of
our country — educationally and economically — to develop Auroville.

Q. Sir, you said that UNESCO has embraced Auroville as one of its
major programmes, which fulfils its fundamental aims and purposes.
Now what does this imply as far as UNESCO’s involvement in the

21

fulfillment of the Auroville project is concerned, and how far is UNESCO
willing to finance the project or to raise the finances for its fulfillment ?

Dr. Adiseshiah: I have already, I think, answered this, by the way,
when I said I do not believe the financing by UNESCO is appropriate at
this moment. We are just completing today one year of the foundation
of Auroville, and we are proud of the fact that most of the member-
states of UNESCO sent part of their soil, exactly a year ago, for the
foundation ceremony. That symbolic action in giving a part of their land
— land over which man through the ages has fought, fought bloodily,
fought at the cost of the lives of many men and women and children
— this free giving of a piece of their own land in the creation of a new
city is a hopeful augury of the time when UNESCO and all its member-
states would make their contribution — financial, material, and spiritual
— for the building of Auroville.

Melville de Mello: Dr. Adiseshiah, thank you very
much. 155-161

1969

On the 23" January, 1969 I wrote a letter to The Mother:

“’.. My first question is: ‘Is it still necessary for me to continue to do this
work? Or has it come to a stage when it would go forward by its own
momentum since Sat seems convinced about the merits of Auroville
and the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, and has promised UNESCO’s
support and cooperation? Can someone else like Jullie Medlock, Jay
Smith or Anjani Dayanand take over? Or would my withdrawal affect
Your work through Sat?’ (The Mother asked the attendant to underline
the three names and write an emphatic Non! Non! And added: ‘It is
better if she continues’). F10

I further asked: “I am asking this because for me to continue this
work under the present circumstance by which I am constantly hindered,
seems rather precarious and difficult — precarious because of his close
relationship with me and difficult and time-consuming because of the
distance. I am prepared to withdraw and do whatever work You may
have for me with You. For I have only one joy in life: to love You totally
and integrally, to serve You with a total self-giving without any reserve
whatsoever and with perfect sincerity and surrender. I am absolutely

22

certain that I want nothing but what the Divine wills for me or His work
to be done through me, and I am prepared for anything. (The Mother
told Her attendant to put two lines against this paragraph and write:
‘That is why you can do better than others that work.’)

So now, please tell me:

1. What is my true work — the mission with which I have come upon
earth to serve You? (The Mother replied: ‘This is revealed’ — au fur
et d mesure que le travail est fait— ‘gradually as the work is done’).

2. What is the place of Sat in the fulfillment of this mission? (To this
The Mother replied: ‘For the moment as it is’).

3. What is my true relationship with Sat? How can I help him to
realise his fulfillment and joy in You? (The Mother replied: ‘For the
moment as it is’).

4. How can all this be best realised? (‘By being steady and quiet’
was The Mother’s comment). ...”

After receiving the replies to my question, I asked Her again: “You
said that the truth of my relationship with Sat is ‘as it is for the moment,’
Now, if it is the truth, why for the moment?” Again, She gave me a
cryptic reply:

“You will know it au fur et d mesure que tu progresses vers la
Vérité.” (‘Gradually, as you progress towards the Truth’). 162-3

On 18 April, 1969 I wrote an official letter to Sat, informing him about
the reply I had received from Mr. Prem Kirpal, President of the Indian
Commission for UNESCO in New Delhi in response to my enquiry
regarding the category A for the Society in relation to UNESCO:

“Dear Dr. Adiseshiah,

I just received a reply from Mr. Kirpal, excerpts from which I am giving
below for your information and possible action: ‘If the request of the
Society for category A status is on the agenda of the Board, I shall
certainly give all my support and try to steer it successfully.

‘As Adiseshiah may have told you, an organisation has to apply for
such status, giving full information and justification; the application
is examined by UNESCO secretariat and the Director-General gives
his recommendation; in each case the Board decides on the basis of
the Director-General’s recommendation and his own views. I assume
that in your case Adiseshiah has processed the case in the Secretariat

23

and formulated a favourable recommendation for the Director-General.
If these steps have not been taken and the item is not on the Board’s
agenda, nothing can be done. As Vice-President of the Board and a
member of the Committee of Non-Governmental Organisations, I shall
be able to help after the preliminary steps have been taken.’

I hope you have received a copy of my letter to Mr. Kirpal regarding
the change of status for the Society. I trust that you have taken all the
necessary steps and this item is on the agenda ofthe Executive Board forits
April meeting. A report on the Society’s activities was sent to youin May
1968 for this purpose. Iam now enclosing my paper on Auroville which
was prepared for the last General Conference of UNESCO in November,
1968. I leave it all to your discretion. With best regards.” 165-6

World University for Human Unity

On 16" October, 1969 I wrote to The Mother:

“... [hada talk with Kireet on the U.N. project of the World University.
On the one hand it seems better to work quietly by ourselves without
bothering about this project. On the other hand, we felt that perhaps the
time has come when we can no longer work in isolation inasmuch as
the world around us is fast-moving and we wish to combine both these
movements in our experiment. Personally, I feel that this project has
come up on this large scale to celebrate the Centenary of Sri Aurobindo
and fulfill one of his visions: human unity. I feel sure that He will preside
over its execution. However, we realise that we cannot accept the U.N.
project unless we can have the freedom to work it out on our lines. (The
Mother affirmed this sentence by a gesture of nodding, wrote Kireet
in the margin). But I see a line of action whereby it seems possible to
secure the requisite freedom for our action. It is on the following basis.
This being an educational project, the U.N. would undoubtedly consult
UNESCO. And most probably Sat will represent UNESCO at the U.N.
for this project. Inasmuch as Sat has publicly commended our Centre of
Education as the only place where the dream has become a reality and
affirmed that its pedagogy, its psychology and its spiritual foundation
is that of UNESCO, embodied in its charter and which they are striving
after but they have not been able to realise anywhere else, I feel that the
opening has already been made for us and this project will be given to

24

us in the interest of the world. (The underlined passage was noted by
The Mother).

Since Sat’s remarks are based on our Centre of Education, we can
demand the requisite freedom of action for the Auroville University
only on the grounds that it will be an extension of our experimentation
in the Centre of Education which has worked independently on the lines
of Sri Aurobindo’s teachings without any outside interference. And if
they find that our experiment will fulfill the aims that they have in view
—as the Deputy Director-General believes it will — they may collaborate
in its development. This can be worked out through Sat without any
difficulty.

Incidentally, since Sat is not so well-grounded in Sri Aurobindo’s
teachings and does not have the full picture of the practical side of our
education, I feel it would be best if he is assisted by Kireet. I suggest
Kireet for more than one reason, but also because Kireet and Sat have
mutual liking and admiration for each other and they go very well
together. Besides, the U.N. requires a person of great dynamism, strong
conviction and indefatiguable perseverance of will, and I can think of
no other person better suited for the job who can handle it with equal
keenness of mind and caution.” (The Mother remarked on the passage
Kireet had underlined: ‘What does this mean? Does it mean that you
have to go? For that is impossible.’ Kireet wrote Her reply in the
margin).

Knowing the U.N. and its manner of work, its diplomacy and
difficulties, it seems to me to be a crucial issue and I am aware that one
would have to handle it with caution, but in spite of all the difficulties
I can foresee, I am certain of Your victory. Is this Your Will? Do You
feel that it would be good to link up the World University project of the
U.N. and accept Auroville University as an expansion of our Centre of
Education? Would You approve of our working on the lines suggested?
I await Your reply and direction with all humility and surrender to Your
Will.”

The Mother said:

“It is not exactly like that. It is not an extension. It is a New Creation.
The whole of Auroville is education. It is to teach how to live for the
New Tomorrow.”

25

Kireet wrote The Mother’s reply on my letter. 166-8

The Design for Living

Roger! had come to my house to discuss UNESCO’s project of the
Design for Living and Auroville since a letter was going in this regard
to UNESCO. I told him about my views, but said that I would confirm
my position only after I had written to The Mother and received Her
answer. So, I wrote to Her:

“’.. Roger came to talk about Auroville and UNESCO. He told me
about his talks with Pouschpa Dass’ and Gilbert’s trip to Delhi in that
connection. I do not know if You would approve of my writing this, but
since the matter came to my attention and Roger wanted me to give my
views regarding it, I put before You what I feel impelled from within,
not as a criticism, but as a concern. And I pray for Your forgiveness for
any error of transgression. I have enquired with Navajata too on the
subject and I am told that a decision has been taken to make Auroville
a part of the project of Design for Living, sponsored by Ramesh Thaper
and a few others, and that we are proposing to offer Auroville for their
experiment, because it is believed that the Design for Living will be
soon accepted as a Major Project by UNESCO and a huge sum of
money is expected to flow to it.

I do not understand why we have to tag ourselves to somebody else’s
tail for the sake of money. It seems to me quite undignified, undiplomatic
and uncalled for. I feel that it implies a lack of faith in the merits of our
own project and the strength of Sri Aurobindo’s vision and its sure action.

I do not see why Auroville should not be accepted on its merits by
UNESCO, fulfilling its aims, when Sat as the Deputy Director-General
has publicly expressed his strong convictions and the importance of
Auroville, our International Centre of Education and the Ashram for
India and the world and extolled them as the only hope for humanity.

Besides, I am told by Roger that in spite of all oppositions and
great difficulties, he has been able to get the preliminary sanction of
$3,000 from the Executive Board of UNESCO as a token of their
acceptance of Auroville. It seems to me most ironical that we have

1 Roger Anger, Mother’s architect, whom in 1965 she asked to build her ‘ideal town’.
2 The Director of the Division of Cultural Development at UNESCO.

26

more faith in the Design for Living than in Auroville in spite of Your
Force working with us all the time and that we are ready to make
Auroville a part of the Design for Living project, thereby giving
it a subsidiary position just for the sake of money! Somehow, I feel
that this action is vitiated by our overdue concern for the money.

I have studied the Design for Living project and in spite of their good
points and common objectives, Mother, I feel that our fundamental aims,
approach and the basis of work are quite different from theirs and I ama
bit apprehensive about unnecessary interference from them if Auroville
is offered as a part of their project and experiment. And I feel that if any
association must take place, it should be the Design for Living which
should become a part of Auroville since our aims and objectives are
much vaster and far-reaching than theirs, and the request must come
from them or from UNESCO rather than us going after them.

This approach of ours at present seems to me quite undiplomatic
and unnecessary — perhaps because I feel a strong possibility of
UNESCO’s accepting Auroville as a Major project and taking the
initiative for its fulfillment if Sat takes it upon himself to pursue and
then the funds may be directed to Auroville. Would it not perhaps be
wiser to work through the key persons of UNESCO —- Sat, Tewfik,
Kirpal, Pouschpa Dass — and explain them how Auroville embodies
in its very ideology, conception and town planning the very objectives
envisaged in the Design for Living and goes even further than those
objectives to fulfill the larger aims, rather than running after Ramesh
Thaper and asking them to accept Auroville as a part of their project?

But if you have approved of this approach, I must admit
that the Design of the All-wise Diplomat still escapes me and
I would be grateful for Your enlightenment on this subject.”

The Mother wrote Her reply on my letter:

“I do not know who told you that — but there is a misunderstanding
somewhere because to hand over the management of Auroville to
any country or any group however big it may be is an absolute
impossibility. If it has been at all taken, it is without my knowledge
— because I say to it an emphatic NO.” Fil

During my work for Auroville, I had to fight many battles for

27

my initiatives and course of action. For, I was often branded as
impractical and a dreamer. I wrote to The Mother another letter,
extracts of which are given below and Her enlightening reply:
“.. Somehow I feel, and Sat has assured me also, that Auroville will
be accepted as a major project of UNESCO on its own merit since it
embraces its most fundamental aims and purposes and UNESCO can
take a campaign leadership for its fulfillment. But for that he said
we must first help the Member-States to understand the ideology of
Auroville and its programme, and then, UNESCO will make them aware
of their concern and responsibility for its fulfillment. However, we have
not done anything on those lines and nobody believes that UNESCO
will accept Auroville as a major project. But if Sat, who has worked
for it ever since its inception, can publicly admit, in spite of being its
Deputy Director-General, that ‘all other means to achieve peace and
unity’ have failed, that UNESCO and outside Auroville all have failed,
and Auroville is a hope for humanity to come out of its present all-
round chaos,’ I don’t understand the cause of this pessimism. But mine
seems to be a cry in the wilderness. People have always accused me of
being an immature idealist whose feet are not on the ground and who
ignores the reality of the world as it is and whose ideas seem to them
impracticable.”

The Mother replied in the margin of my letter:

“Your only preoccupation must be to be and to do only what the
Divine wants you to be and to do. What the others think of you has
absolutely no importance. With love and blessings.” 168-172, F12

U.N. World University proposal

The most evident expression of Her Grace came in 1969, when the
United Nations had asked UNESCO to establish a world university
with a view to realise human unity. The latter had sent a circular to
all their member-states and affiliated non-governmental organisations
with consultative status, asking them to send a project report for
this university. The letter was received by Navajata’s office and
unfortunately it remained on his table for a long time. Then he called
a meeting of his committee members for Auroville: Roger Anger,

28

Yvonne Artaud, André, Norman Dowsett, Anjani Dayanand, Prem
Malik, Shyamsundar and two Aurovillians to discuss the project. Prem
admitted later in confidence that none of them had really a clue about
what such a university should be, but certain ideas were discussed and
sent to The Mother.

Two weeks were left before the deadline and Navajata came urgently
to me, saying: “Kailas, we have to make a project-report on a World
University for human unity in Auroville. Can you do it? It has to be
sent to UNESCO within two weeks.” I said: “Bhai-ji (elder brother), I
don’t know if I can do it at such a short notice.” So he said: “You need
not worry, because you have just to prepare it on the basis of ideas
already put forward to The Mother and approved by Her. I will send
you all the papers.” I felt reluctant, but Navajata insisted that I do it. So,
on the basis of what The Mother had already seen and approved of, a
draft was sent as I always did for Her comments before dispatching it
to UNESCO. | added that it was urgent. As you will see, I had to learn a
great deal of The Mother’s way of working from this incident.

Well, I heard that when The Mother had it read out, She was furious!
She threw the papers on the ground, asking: “Who has asked her to
prepare such a report?” When I heard this, I was shaken to my bones
and shattered to pieces. ...1 went to the Samadhi and prayed to Sri
Aurobindo to bring me out of this state of Nihil — Nothingness or void
—and help me. ... I had the experience of absolute calm and confidence
as Sri Aurobindo came to my help. My hands touched the appropriate
book and I opened it on the page required where I found the material
needed for my presentation. Ideas came pouring down and a vision
was given to me. I worked without a break and extracts were found
that perfectly fitted in. I prepared the whole project as guided by Sri
Aurobindo and sent it to The Mother with this letter and a synopsis

through Poornaprema (Francoise). .... [The synopsis is reproduced
in the chapter “World University for Human Unity and International
Pavilions”. ] 235-8

This time the Mother, having heard the letter and the synopsis, wanted

1 The Mother’s granddaughter, at that time married to Roger Anger, the Mother’s
architect.

29

to listen to the whole paper, keeping the usual Ashram departmental
heads like Nolini-da, Counouma, Amrita and Navajata waiting outside.
She listened with rapt attention to the whole report on Auroville and
Education, which later came out in the Mother India issue of July 1970
[also reproduced in the chapter “World University for Human Unity
and International Pavilions” ]. The Mother was pleased. Pournaprema
(Francoise) returned the synopsis and the papers, writing The Mother’s
comment as follows:

Chere Kailas, about this, The Mother said: “C’est trés,
tres bien.” (It is very, very good). F13

The Mother wrote to me separately: “Kailas, it can be sent.
Blessings” F14

Later, André! commented on it in a short note to me: “The two
papers, ‘Auroville and its raison d’étre and Auroville and Education’
are excellent and it is a very good thing that they are on files at
UNESCO and the U.N. Such is the last paragraph on Auroville. The
beginning describes what should be any good system of education.
Regarding Auroville University, it is a remarkable selection of
Sri Aurobindo’s views on Human Unity....” 238-241

Dr. Faure* was invited by UNESCO’s International Commission on
Education to prepare a report for the project of the U.N. on World
University. This was published in a book, entitled ‘Learning to Be’.
It was sent to us and came to my attention. I wrote my comments and
reflections on it to Dr. Adiseshia:

“T thought of preparing a commentary on the report with a view to initiate
a basis of collaboration between UNESCO and Auroville International
University, especially since Dr. Faure himself expressed in his letter to
me the concord between the two. However, I believe that the concept of

1 The Mother’s son, and a member of the Administrative Committee of Auroville.
2 The former Prime Minister, and the Minister of Education of France at the time of the
May 1968 crisis.

30

Auroville, its thesis and programme are better defined and go beyond
the vision of this report. In my view, ‘a critical reflection and overall
solution to the problems involved in the development of education in this
changing universe’ offered here fall short of my expectations. I would
be grateful for your advice in this matter. ... [The full text is reproduced
in the chapter “World University for Human Unity and International
Cultural Pavilions”. ] 241-2

I asked The Mother through Kireet regarding Her approval of a letter
to be sent to U Thant, the Secretary-General of the United Nations:

“... Kireet told me that You approve of the linking up of the World
University Project of the U.N. with Auroville University, provided that
we are given the requisite freedom of action to work it out on our own
lines. On the other hand, I am told that a letter has been sent with Your
approval to U Thant, asking them to accept Auroville University as a
World University and to send their committee of experts to draw up
with us a plan for Auroville University. I pray for Your forgiveness for
any transgression in this note, but I write it because I fail to understand
Your intention in this approval inasmuch as to me it seems to be a
rather difficult and precarious approach, and may invite unnecessary
interference. Besides, our direct action may place us as one among
many applicants for the U.N. project. (The Mother asked Kireet to write
Her answer as follows: ‘This is horrible. I did not know that Norman
was to give the letter. It should be stopped’).

What I had in view when I sent my note with Kireet was to
let UNESCO make this proposal to the U.N. in the interest of the
world, which I felt could have given our project its due perspective
and importance and at the same time would have left our hands free
to work out our own plan. (To the suggestion of Kailas that the letter
should be sent to Sat - UNESCO - and that he should present it
to the U.N. The Mother said: ‘That is better’). ... 247-8

[The letter that Kailas wrote to Mr. Jagbans Balbir, the head of the
UNESCO Dept. of Education in Paris, to accompany her report
on Auroville International University, and her answers to the
“Questionnaire” are reproduced in the chapter “World University for
Human Unity and International Cultural Pavilions”. ]

31

I received a reply on the 20" April, 1970 from Mr. Jagbans Balbir:

“T have the pleasure to inform you that your papers in connection with
Education in Auroville and Auroville University have been carefully
studied by me here. I appreciate the reflections that have gone into the
preparation of these papers and the presentation inspired by great ideals
of philosophy and education. These papers are all the more welcome at
a time when the United Nations' and UNESCO are concerned with the
implementation of the terms of the Resolution...

The overall emphasis on the orientation of the human mind to
the exigencies of contemporary society both in the developed and
developing countries is a valuable point. Auroville, as you point out,
can indeed work to be a centre for the study and appreciation of ‘the
cultures of the different regions of the world’ and by a select programme
of intellectual activity, help individuals to become conscious of the
wealth of the nation to which they belong and to surpass the natural
frontiers in order to converge towards internationalisation of spirit...

The chapter on the Auroville University appears to me to contain
many elements that could be useful for elaborating the concept of the
United Nations’ University. The notes on the Integral Yoga and on
Education have also retained our attention and would provide for a basis
of a comparative reflection on the philosophy of education, if required.
Please accept my warm thanks for providing us with all this material and
be assured of our continued interest in your activities.” 257

1970
Change of Status for Sri Aurobindo Society (2)
On 17" March, 1970, I wrote a letter to Prem Kirpal? concerning the
promotion of the Sri Aurobindo Society in relation with UNESCO to

the category A.

“Dear Mr. Kirpal, I have heard that your department of the NGOs’
relations with UNESCO in Paris had complained that there was not

1 It should be noted that an internationally known renewable energy expert, Chamanlal
Gupta, had obtained the Mother’s permission to attend in Stockholm the first United
Nations’ conference, together with Roger Anger.

2 President of the Indian National Commission for UNESCO.

32

much progress in the Society’s activities to promote it to the B category.
I do not know by what yardstick UNESCO judges our progress, but
to me, it seems to be a rather hasty judgement. And I bring it to your
attention, because in response to my letter when you were in Hawaii,
last year, you had written to me that as a Chairman of this Committee
and as Vice-President of the Executive Board of UNESCO, you would
do everything possible to put the Society in Category A.

I feel that the ideals and the cause we have in common with UNESCO
are strengthened in a concrete way in one of the major activities of
the Society', namely Auroville, where an international community is
spontaneously growing and a genuine experiment in international living
is being carried out with the signal aspiration to manifest human unity
in all actions, thoughts and feelings.

This township itself, as you know, is a major educational venture
for humanity, involving activities in all fields of life, aiming at the
complete transformation and reorganisation of life’s activities and
relationships at all levels. There is, one could say, a constant all-
year round seminar going on with all participating at all levels and
the problems of harmony are discussed, experimented upon and
resolved at each stage in all fields of action in a most living way.

It seems to me that first of all, one must be aware of the problems
and difficulties involved in the realisation of Auroville. On the
external plane, if one had seen the arid, barren land that it was, when
we launched our project, with no facilities either of roads, transport,
electricity, water supply, or housing and observed the apathy and even
antipathy as well as antagonistic attitudes in the communities of the
villagers who were afraid of any change and were being exploited by
their leaders and the politicians, and witnessed other such difficulties
slowing down the progress — not to speak of the bureaucracy of the
government and the slowness of their response — then, one would
perhaps appreciate better whatever has been done in spite of it all.

Secondly, considering the heterogeneous groups of people involved
in this work and the extreme contrast of their background — social,

1 The First World Conference of the Sri Aurobindo Society (of which the Mother was
the President), held in Pondicherry from April 10 to April 14, 1964, attended by over
400 delegates from India and other countries, focused on human unity. The Conference
opened with a message from the Mother, who had approved and blessed the entire
program. One major decision was to build a town, at Pondicherry’s outskirts, for people
striving for new ways of life. Some months later the Mother will name this new town
Auroville.

33

cultural, educational, traditional, religious and national — with an
additional problem of language and communication, I feel that there is
a considerable progress in introspection, experience and understanding
on the level of the underlying unity. To me, this inner progress, the
discovery of oneness, the appreciation of all cultures and an attempt at
their synthesis in a living way seems very important. For, the aim of the
Society is to realise a progressive universal harmony through a change
of consciousness. ‘All other means have been tried everywhere and
they have ended in a stark tragedy,’ as Dr. Adiseshiah explained. So, if
the Society’s relationship with UNESCO is important for humanity, it is
because the Society has the vision of Sri Aurobindo to guide it and the
accumulated experience of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram over fifty years
in the implementation of this vision, and the conviction of its success
under the Mother’s guidance. The universal township of Auroville is
an attempt to offer this opportunity to the whole of humanity and share
with it the same experiment and its results on a larger scale for the
realisation of human unity in diversity. And it was for this that a closer
relationship with UNESCO was felt to be useful.

If, as Dr. Adiseshiah, Deputy Director-General of UNESCO, himself
realised and explained, it is understood by all at UNESCO who believe
in the glorious future of Man that Auroville is the hope of humanity to
come out of its present chaos, I feel it should be deemed to be of mutual
interest to have a more effective collaboration, for it will indeed further
and fulfillin a true way the fundamental aims and purpose of UNESCO.
If UNESCO can see and feel the strength of this vision offered to it and
wish to share with us this pioneering labour of realisation in Auroville
which gives a new dimension to UNESCO’s activities, we would
indeed be most happy to have UNESCO’s constructive collaboration.
This effort of the Society for the realisation of human unity, peace and
progress of the human race through an endless education concomitant
with the evolution aiming at the transcendence of the human
consciousness, requires an understanding participation of all concerned.
And so, being aware of your interest and concern, I leave it to you as the
Vice-President of the executive board of UNESCO and the Chairman
of the Committee on the Relations of the NGOs with UNESCO, to do
as you see fit.”

In the same year I wrote a letter to Dr. Adiseshiah and also to Dr. Kirpal

34

since he was the vice-President of the Executive Board of UNESCO the
following letter:

“It seems to me that in view of the importance of the project of
Auroville for India and the world, UNESCO ought to officially accept
Auroville as a Major project, effectively fulfilling its fundamental aims
and purposes and initiate a leadership campaign for its development.
Since Auroville has been dedicated to the whole of humanity and its
aims and ideals are so vast and all-inclusive, it cannot be considered
just a city proposed to be built in India. And when they have passed two
resolutions on Auroville, expressing their faith, belief and confidence in
it for fulfilling the aims of UNESCO, and have invited all the Member-
States to participate in its development, I see no reason why such an
initiative for some more concrete and active collaboration should not
come from UNESCO.

Can they not do something substantial to support the project which
will represent all cultures and the civilisations of all ages, and will be a
living monument for the whole of humanity inasmuch as its emphasis
is on the divine reality in Man and its full manifestation with a new
consciousness that will transcend its still narrow and groping mental-
ethical consciousness? Can we not put an equal emphasis on the future
destiny of Man as we do on the glories of the past? Cannot the Executive
Board propose such an initiative in the case of Auroville where its
projects offer such an ample scope in which the highest aspirations of
humanity and the aims of the U.N. and UNESCO can be fulfilled in a
true and effective way?

Can you not convey and convince the Director-General that Auroville
itself is a Design of Living which far surpasses what is envisaged in the
project of UNESCO -— that Auroville itself is a university (universe—
city) which far exceeds what is proposed by U Thant in the U.N.
project of the World University? For, how can one establish harmony
with Nature and Man without first establishing the harmony within?

It is the aim of Auroville to realise progressive universal harmony
on all levels of life, its relationships and its manifold activities. It
is being built for a life of endless education and constant progress
not only on the individual level but on a collective level too.

Auroville in its very conception, ideology and projects continuously
presents a Design for Living which will ensure harmony within and

35

without — harmony between all parts of the being, harmony between Man
and Nature, between man and man, between man and his community,
between nations, between man and the world and the universe that
envelopes, penetrates and influences him at each moment, harmony
between Matter and Spirit, between the past, present and the future,
between the inner aspirations of man and his external realisations.

Man, we believe, can never bein harmony with Manand Nature, unless
he builds harmony within himself, cooperates withthe aim ofevolutionary
Nature and constantly transcends himself. Auroville is therefore a
Design for Living based on the change of consciousness. For, ‘to change
the conditions without changing the consciousness is a vain chimera.’

Even architecturally, as you know, a free spirit of architectural
innovation will be used in the different types of buildings in the four
zones of Auroville so that there can be a constant intimacy between
Man and Nature, between his work and his environment, between
man and his community, between Man and God. For, the architectural
conception of Auroville views man as an individual who yearns to
commune with the Infinite in its infinite expressions and relations and it
will offer an environment in which man can be alone with himself and
with all at once in an environment of Beauty.

Could UNESCO see its way to use a substantial part of its funds for
its various projects towards the development of Auroville where the
aims of those very projects would be better fulfilled in Auroville and
thus collaborate for its success, I believe something of a far-reaching
consequence towards the fulfillment of the hopes and aspirations of
humanity may very well be achieved even in our life-time.

Of course, I do understand the difficulties you mentioned in
organisations like UNESCO with its rules and procedures and
conventions. But knowing that you can tackle these problems, | feel
emboldened to say that one can always question those conventions
which impede progress, even if it means shaking the foundation of the
old structure.

... In view of the coming Centenary of Sri Aurobindo in 1972,
cannot UNESCO accept to undertake the leadership campaign
for the development of Auroville as UNESCO’s responsibility in
commemoration and as a homage to Sri Aurobindo who combines in
his vision, his life and action all cultures, the best of the past, present
and the future; who gives decisive answers to the problems of groping

36

humanity; who will not only deliver us from the present chaos, but
lead us if we will with him to that future of Unity and Peace the
world is desperately looking for, to the future of Knowledge beyond
all conventions and ideologies, to a world of the New Creation and a
new world order at the service of the Truth? For Supermind, towards
which Sri Aurobindo leads us, is that further step in the evolution of
Consciousness. Being the Truth-Consciousness, it harmonises all
aspects of the Truth.

I believe Sri Aurobindo is the Future that humanity is secretly
seeking to come out of its present chaos, for he gives us the vision and
the way to consciously collaborate with the push of evolutionary Nature
and thus hasten the advent of the Supermind, which alone can fulfill
the highest aspirations of humanity for Freedom, Knowledge, Equality,
Unity, endless Progress and invariable Bliss. Would it not be then a sign
of mutual recognition of our efforts of goodwill and collaboration for
the fulfillment of our common aims if UNESCO undertook its part of the
responsibility for the development of Auroville and its various projects
as a homage to Sri Aurobindo, who though born in India, represents the
soul of humanity in all its glory? Iam sure that you will do the needful
to bring this to the attention of all concerned at UNESCO.”

Personally, Sat did many things to promote Auroville: printed the model
of Auroville on his New Year greeting cards, included Auroville in
UNESCO journals, gave television interviews in India and Paris, a radio
interview in India, and supported the resolutions on Auroville.” 264-9.

After Sat left UNESCO, I thought I could leave the work of Auroville
in its relation with UNESCO. And I asked the Mother about it. But She
did not respond. So, I wrote again:

“.. Last evening, Anjani' asked me if I would work on drafting the
resolution on Auroville for the UNESCO Conference so that Auroville
may be accepted as its Major Project as Sat suggested that it could
be. I feel that it would be best if we could link it with Sri Aurobindo’s

1 Anjani Dayanand, a member of the Administrative Committee of Auroville.

37

Centenary and it could be taken up by UNESCO as homage to Sri
Aurobindo. However, I do not want to proceed on this matter until I
know from You directly what is Your Will. I put this before You again
because it seems to me that due to my work and study at the U.N. I
know the procedures and the ways of their work, their strength and
weakness perhaps a little more than anyone else here. And the work
keeps coming to me in one form or another. Besides, when I told them
about my feelings and approach to UNESCO’s programme of ‘Design
for Living’ and the World University, they did not agree with me. But
Sat told them the same thing and I felt that perhaps it would save a
lot of wasteful efforts on their part if I resumed this work. And while
reconsidering the matter during this time, I felt that though the real work
would always be within me, I can use the field of work for which I am
trained for Your Work. I also remembered what You told me once that
if I feel I can do the work effectively, I must do it. And I do feel often
that I can do it, because You have given me the capacity to adapt to any
situation and difficulties do not matter to me. Besides, I am prepared to
do anything, provided it is Your Will. So, in view of Anjani’s proposal,
I ask again: ‘What is Your Will? Is this the work You have chosen for
me? Shall I resume the work with UNESCO or do You have something
else for me to do? I have just finished the compilation work for the
Centenary. I wait for Your reply with all humility and surrender. Ever
with love, at Thy feet, Ta petite.”

The Mother replied in a corner of my letter:

“Yes, do the work. It is all right. Do it with care and confidence, it will
be whatit has to be. Love and blessings.” F15

She sent back my letter along with two flowers of Divine’s Presence
with Poornaprema (Francoise), saying: “If she asks, one represents the
presence of Sri Aurobindo and the other represents mine.” 271-2

Preparations for Sri Aurobindo’s Centenary in 1969-70

The Centenary of Sri Aurobindo was approaching and we were
preparing for its world-wide celebration through UNESCO. So, I put
forward my proposal to The Mother, saying:

38

“This will include translations of Sri Aurobindo’s works in the major
languages of the world, conferences, seminars, radio and television
talks, lectures in universities, performances of Sri Aurobindo’s plays,
opening of Sri Aurobindo Study Centres etc. A resolution will be put
forward for UNESCO’s General Conference in October 1970, by
the Government of India. Three months prior to this Conference, an
introductory book on Sri Aurobindo’s life and vision will be distributed
among the delegates to better acquaint people throughout the world
with Sri Aurobindo’s contribution in each field of life’s activities.”

The Mother approved this, but wrote the following against my proposal
for writing the details of Sri Aurobindo’s life:

“Sri Aurobindo belongs to the future and all these details of the past
are without interest and I have no time to doit.” F16

When I asked Her whether this book should be a compilation of
articles in Sri Aurobindo’s own words or writers’ introduction and
presentation of Sri Aurobindo’s contribution, She replied that it
should be a compilation in Sri Aurobindo’s own words. I proposed the
following persons for collaboration, which The Mother sanctioned:

Rishabhchand Integral yoga

Kireet Joshi Metaphysics

Kailas Jhaveri Indian Culture

Kishore Gandhi Social and Political philosophy
K. D. Sethna (Amal Kiran) Literature

Indra Sen Psychology

Sisir Kumar Mitra On India

Arindam Basu Editor

So, I proposed this to each of the collaborators:

“The date of publication of the book is fixed for 15 August, 1970.
It would be published by Sri Aurobindo Society in the Ashram Press,
which would require one year’s time before publication. The editor
would need at least a month and the final typing would take at least two
months. So, the deadline for the material to be received would be June
1969. Each section is limited to 30-50 typed sheets. The book is intended
to be kept within the limit of 250-300 pages. I hope that you will kindly

39

collaborate in this collective effort.” Everyone gave the manuscript in
time. But in place of Amal, Tehmi undertook the subject of literature.

During this time I wanted to prepare a resolution on the Centenary of
Sri Aurobindo. So, I asked The Mother if I could see Her. When She
agreed, I prepared this resolution for Sri Aurobindo’s Centenary to be
passed by UNESCO and took it to The Mother for Her comments. I told
Her that I proposed it to be forwarded by the Indian Government or if
possible, it could be presented by UNESCO. I read it out to Her:

“The General Conference of UNESCO,

Noting that 15™ August, 1972 marks the Birth Centenary of Sri
Aurobindo;

Certain of the importance of the vision and the work of Sri Aurobindo
for the future of humanity;

Aware that the mental consciousness even at its highest is still a
groping consciousness;

Recognising the value of the original contribution of Sri Aurobindo
to the study of the evolutionary process and his diagnosis of the present
crisis of mankind as an evolutionary crisis, necessitating the mutation
of man into the next higher evolutionary species which would possess a
new consciousness, the Truth-Consciousness, far exceeding the mental
consciousness;

Convinced that mind is not the last summit of evolution and
the supramental change is inevitable in the evolution of the earth-
consciousness;

Realising that a perfected world cannot be created by men who
are themselves imperfect and that to change the conditions without
changing the consciousness is a vain chimera;

Believing that the future of humanity depends upon this change of
consciousness;

Appreciating that the method proposed by Sri Aurobindo to realise
peace, unity and progress is through this further step in the evolution
of the mental consciousness into the Supramental Consciousness in
which man will be universalised and perfected;

Confident that the integral and integrated education for self-
transcendence, self-transformation and self-perfection as proposed
by Sri Aurobindo is an indispensable means for fulfilling the highest

40

aspirations and aims of humanity in a true and effective way;

Certain that the integral, synthetic and unifying vision of Sri
Aurobindo and his work for the manifestation of the Supramental
Consciousness are decisive steps which will radically transform the
earth-consciousness and bring about a new creation, a new world
culture, and a new world order at the service of the Truth;

Appreciating Sri Aurobindo’s insistence on the necessity of this
radical transformation for the glorious future of humanity;

Affirming that Sri Aurobindo presents a new and secure hope to our
perplexed and bewildered humanity;

Calls upon all the Member-States, National Commissions, Non-
Governmental Organisations, International Agencies, Educational
and Research Institutions, Cultural Organisation, Foundations, Mass
Communication Agencies and all individuals everywhere to observe
the period of 15 August 1972 to 15 August 1973 as the Sri Aurobindo
Centenary Year and to that effect,

Urges them to undertake whichever of the following activities that
may come within their scope:

(i) to organise centres for the study of Sri Aurobindo’s writings;

(11) to encourage and assist the publication of the major works of
Sri Aurobindo in different languages of the world;

(iii) to devote special issues to the writings of Sri Aurobindo;

(iv) to organise meetings, talks, seminars, exhibitions, recitations,
films and stage plays and any other means of communication to expound
the integral and uplifting vision of Sri Aurobindo and its application in
life;

(v) to organise, collaborate and assist in every way possible
activities which will implement the vision of Sri Aurobindo;

(vi) to consciously collaborate with the aim of Nature by
presenting and putting into practice the ideal of Sri Aurobindo for
self-transcendence, self-transformation and self-perfection and thus to
accelerate the manifestation of the new consciousness, the new creation
and the new world order;

(vii) to establish a Sri Aurobindo Memorial Fund for continuously
supporting such activities as may be needed in order to prepare the
earth for this new creation;

(viii) to celebrate the Centenary of Sri Aurobindo in any other way
befitting his glorious vision and his work for the future of humanity;

41

Authorises the Director-General to initiate and organise these
activities and do whatever may be necessary for their execution, and

Requests the UNESCO Secretariat and all concerned to take every
step necessary for the fulfillment of the terms of this resolution in
homage to Sri Aurobindo.”

She listened to it carefully, nodded Her approval with a smile and
said: “Excellent! It would be a good beginning for Sri Aurobindo’s
work. Do you think they would accept it?” I said: “It has not been
done up till now. But could not there be a new beginning?” The
Mother laughed and said: “Do you mean UNESCO can change
their established rules?” I said: “Why not? I intend to write to Sat
and point out its value.” The Mother said: “Bravo! Ma _ petite.”
Then, we meditated for ten minutes. She gave me a flower of The
New Creation with a pink lotus, and said: “Au revoir, ma petite!”

The Mother had given me a special message for Sri Aurobindo’s
Centenary for UNESCO:

“An Avatar is not a human being although he _ has
accepted to use a human body.” 274-8, F17

I received a letter from Sat in September, informing me that India had
already forwarded a milder resolution on Sri Aurobindo’s Centenary
thinking that UNESCO was not ready for the strong one that I had
prepared. Reacting strongly, I replied: “I am deeply concerned about
the resolution on the Centenary of Sri Aurobindo that I proposed to you
and would have liked it to be sponsored without any alteration. ...”

I wrote the following letter to the Director-General of UNESCO, Mr.
René Maheu, on 15 October, 1970:

“Dear Director General,

Greetings from Sri Aurobindo Society and the young world!

Since you welcome the suggestions from the young people for
the fulfillment of the aims of UNESCO and the future of humanity, I
venture to present to you the enclosed resolution prepared and passed
by the youth who came to the Foundation Ceremony of Auroville.
Iam also enclosing another draftresolution for SriAurobindo’s Centenary
in 1972 along with a copy of the booklet, entitled, ‘Sri Aurobindo and

42

The Future,’ with this message of The Mother which might interest you:

“An Avatar is not a human being although he has accepted to
use a human body.”

The booklet expounds the thesis contained in the introductory
paragraphs of the resolution. I sincerely feel that it is the most thorough
analysis of the crises of our age and traces the steps of the future terrestrial
evolution towards which we are consciously or unconsciously moving.
I take this opportunity to present it to you because I sincerely believe
that we must realise the next stage of this evolution of consciousness,
termed by Sri Aurobindo as the Supramnental Consciousness which
is the Truth-Consciousness, if we are to fulfill the golden dreams of
our childhood and youth. Since in the words of the Deputy Director-
General of UNESCO ‘all other means have been tried and have ended
in stark tragedy,’ is it not time to try anew way? We trust that UNESCO
will see its way clear under your able leadership and give it a chance
to initiate a new way as proposed in this resolution. We hope that the
enclosed resolution will be unanimously adopted.

With highest regards, sincerely”

I wrote another letter to the Director-General of UNESCO on the
20" October 1970, when I was informed about the contents of a
draft resolution on the Centenary of Sri Aurobindo submitted by the
government of India to UNESCO for inclusion on the agenda of the
General Conference of UNESCO, the gist of which is given below:

“This draft resolution is a summary of the original one I had submitted,
a copy of which for your information is enclosed once more. The
summary was made, I am told, in deference to UNESCO. However, for
the clarity of the presentation of the vision and work of Sri Aurobindo
and its proper stress in view of its importance for the future of humanity
with which Sri Aurobindo was concerned, I would like to submit the
original one for your consideration and for that of the member-states
of UNESCO. ... For the understanding of the value of Sri Aurobindo’s
vision and his contribudion I am again enclosing a little booklet, Sri
Aurobindo and the Future which is a compilation of his writings from
The Life Divine.

Looking forward to the collaboration from UNESCO under your
able guidance and with highest regards...”

43

This letter and the draft resolution were read to The Mother and
approved by Her. Copies of the same had been sent to the important
persons connected with the Centenary programmes. My letter was
passed on to the department concerned and I received an official letter
from Mr. Behrstock, who seemed to be more concerned with their usual
procedure in the matter than the merits of my unique proposal.

[Following this, Kailas wrote two long letters to DR. Adiseshiah,
stressing her reasons in support of the draft resolution she had written. ]

Sat replied that he could not help Navajata' in this matter since he did
not approach him for guidance. And he could not insist on the Indian
government for my draft, because they wanted unanimity. They also felt
that Sri Aurobindo was not so well known even to most of the Indians
to propose my draft, and it would unnecessarily complicate the matter.

I wrote to The Mother about Sat’s reply concerning the Centenary of Sri
Aurobindo. She replied:

“Keep quiet and let him do _ what he _ thinks best.
Blessings.” 278-86, F18

Auroville Work in Paris: 1970

In November 1970, Prem?’ and Roger were insisting that I should go to
Paris for the General Conference of UNESCO before Dr. Adiseshiah
retired. I had no such feeling. So, I felt like declining. They asked me to
write to The Mother. I wrote on the sixth in French since the letter was
to be read by Roger.... [The English translation is as follows:]

“.. Prem and Roger have asked me to go to Paris, because they feel
that it will be very useful if I could establish contacts with UNESCO
and foreign delegations with the help of Sat. Besides, they feel that the
time to do it is now since Sat leaves UNESCO definitively at the end
of this year. ...”

The Mother replied on my letter:

1 The Secretary of the Sri Aurobindo Society.
2 Prem Malik, a member of the Administrative Committee of Auroville; he will
eventually settle in Auromodel as an Aurovilian.

44

“Go there and do the needful. Love and blessings”.

... L asked to see Her before I left for Paris. ... The Mother gave me
an appointment at nine o’clock. As soon as I entered Her room, She
smiled and asked me: “You don’t like this state of silence? It is very
good. People take years to silence their mind!” “But Mother, I do not
know what I can do in this silent state of mind!” She burst out into Her
most exquisite laughter and said: “I can work better through you now.
It is very good, ma petite.” Then, I meditated with Her, after which
She gave me flowers of the red lotus (Avatar—The Supreme Manifested
upon Earth in a Body) and a blessing packet with Sri Aurobindo’s
photo on it. She said: “It is Sri Aurobindo who will work through you.
Be confident. Au revoir, ma petite!” I said: “Merci, Douce Mére. Au
revoir!” And I left. 287-90

*

This was my first visit to Paris. ... I met Dr. Adiseshiah at UNESCO
and he asked me to explain to him the subject of spirituality and the
Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo as well as his unique contribution to
humanity as to a child. ... | was unexpectedly met by Georges, who
worked for a television channel in Paris. He asked me if he could help
me in any way. I asked him if he would do an interview with the Deputy
Director-General of UNESCO, Dr. Adiseshiah, on Auroville for his
channel. He agreed. Georges interviewed Dr. Adiseshiah in French and
he answered the questions in French too. Later, I translated his answers
in English and sent them to The Mother. She was very pleased with the
interview since it carried Sri Aurobindo’s Force and the message was
conveyed not only to UNESCO but also to the general public. It was
later published in the Ashram journal Mother India:

Excerpts from the interview of Dr. Adiseshiah on Auroville
by French Television, Paris, 14° December, 1970

In Auroville, I believe, all the different cultures of the world will be
able to live harmoniously and fruitfully in unity. Auroville will give
us all the possibility of a high level of life which will produce a new
civilisation. The foundation of Auroville is a new kind of spirituality,
a new consciousness which we lack in our world today. With this new

45

consciousness Auroville will have a sure basis for the development of
society in all areas of life — social, economic, cultural, political, etc.

The unique importance of Auroville is that it will never cease to
evolve. It will always grow towards an ever greater perfection. This will
give us the possibility of infinite growth of the human spirit.

We have arrived everywhere in Europe — as in Asia, North America,
Africa — at a stage which drives home to us the faith that there is no way
forward for us except by a conscious spiritual development.

It is difficult for me to explain clearly all the implications of this
new consciousness, but Sri Aurobindo has given in his works a concrete
illustration or a crystalisation of the new Man with a new Consciousness.
In our world the great error of our thought has been to divide our life
between spiritual life and material life. But the great dream of Auroville,
based on Sri Aurobindo’s life-work, is to unite the two. With this reunion
or marriage of Spirit with Matter we shall have truly the possibility of a
new world and a new man, a universal and integral man. Auroville is an
attempt to realise Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy on the terrestrial plane:
the integration of a total man.

In our great universities - Oxford, Cambridge, Sorbonne — and also
in the Roman Catholic monasteries as well as in the temples of Islam,
of Buddhism, etc. — we have tried to develop simultaneously the inner
and the outer life but in its application the ideal has not gone deep
enough, nor become integral. However, the genius of Auroville, based
on Sri Aurobindo’s vision, is the concept of a new man with a new
consciousness that will unite Spirit and Matter.

I believe that in Auroville we shall have a true democracy that does
not exist anywhere in the world; that has never existed before, even in
the ancient cities of Greece — from where in the Occident we learned
the democratic way of life — because theirs was a life based on slavery.
In the great democratic countries also, we have many social problems
which constitute a negation of the democratic life. In one third of the
world, we have economic problems. Well, I think that true democracy
does not yet exist anywhere.

In Auroville, however, all institutions, economic, social, cultural,
based on the concept of the Integral Man with a new consciousness,
will assure a true democracy where each person will have a special
role in the decisions and actions of the township. And thus we shall
also have a new form of political life. No person will be excluded from

46

Auroville because of his sex, age, colour, race, religion or nationality,
or any other social or cultural accident. Auroville is open to all and
not exclusive. As regards tax — the word which always evokes in me
a feeling of compulsion and imposition — I believe that in Auroville,
with this new consciousness, there will be no necessity of imposing any
taxation. For everyone will naturally and voluntarily contribute to the
welfare of all.

Our General Conference of UNESCO has thrice successively
declared that the great project of Auroville is a profound expression of
the spirit of UNESCO. On that basis, freely and unanimously adopted
by 135 member-states of UNESCO, I believe that the moment has come
for all the member-states of all the five continents, for all the voluntary
organisations and most particularly for all individuals to help in the
fulfillment of Auroville.

UNESCO, on its part, will certainly continue to give all the
assistance of which this great project has need. I urge all — governments
of the member-states, private societies, foundations, non-governmental
organisations, specialised agencies — to observe the Sri Aurobindo
Centenary Year which commences on August 15, 1972 and help
the Sri Aurobindo Society in the development of Auroville in every
way possible. 292-7

1971

I had written a reply to a letter of Mr. Pouschpa Dass [the Director of the
Division of Cultural Development at UNESCO] on 22™ November, 1971:

“.. [am enclosing for your information copies of my letter to Mr. Kirpal
concerming our project of the cultural pavilions of all nations as well
as a general letter regarding Auroville and UNESCO’s participation
which might interest you. I do hope at the same time that you may be
able to initiate some action through UNESCO for this project. I feel
that India can take the initiative through this cultural project to lead the
world towards peace and progressive universal harmony. For, I believe
that a true Indian is by temperament and culture a universal being —
integral and open-minded in his vision and synthetic in his attitude and
action. And it would be truly marvellous if we could work together for
these two main projects in Auroville: the International University and
Cultural Pavilions.

47

I have asked Mr. Kirpal to consider a possibility of laying a
foundation stone for the pavilions through the International Council for
the Future of Cultural Relations, as well as through UNESCO. If this
could be done on the 15" August, 1972, it will serve a dual purpose: the
celebration of the Centenary of Sri Aurobindo and the 25" Anniversary
of India’s Independence.

Since UNESCO has already passed three resolutions and Auroville
was dedicated in commemoration of the 20" Anniversary of UNESCO,
would it not be possible for UNESCO to initiate its participation through
this project? Could you investigate ways and means of doing it? Can
it not be done on governmental as well as non-governmental levels in
whatever spontaneous way such participation may be possible? Can
UNESCO not write to them on the basis of these resolutions? I do look
forward to your frank comments and suggestions and hope to hear from
you soon. With best wishes.”

I had also sent the following letter to The Mother:

“... [had a discussion with Sat concerning the Government of India’s
offer of Rs. 5 crores for a Sri Aurobindo University. It seems we could
accept this offer for a university in Auroville. He asked me to discuss
the various problems and possibilities in connection with it with Karan
Singh' and Kothari. Sat will support it. May I try this with Your help
and support? What is Your will and advice? Ever with love, Ta petite.”
The Mother’s answer:

“You can speak to Counouma’ or André.”

Well, neither of them saw the possibility or the necessity of another Sri
Aurobindo University in Pondicherry. In spite of all these efforts on my
part, neither the Indian Government nor Sri Aurobindo Society saw their
way to put my proposed resolution on Sri Aurobindo Centenary through
UNESCO’s Executive Board or the General Conference and what was
passed was a very mild resolution. And the book of compilations for
the Centenary of Sri Aurobindo could not be published due to lack of
funds. Well, I did my bit of nishkama karma (selfless service)! 297-9

1 Appointed at eighteen as the regent of Jammu and Kashmir state, he later became
the youngest-ever member of the Union Cabinet. He graduated with a thesis on Sri
Aurobindo, prophet of Indian nationalism, and has served thrice as Chairman of the
Auroville Foundation.

2 A departmental head of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

48

Sri Aurobindo’s Action

Once there was a proposal about my going to Delhi to discuss our
project of Cultural Pavilions with Mr. Kirpal with the help of Sat
who would be there too. But somehow it could not work out due
to a different position taken by one of the committee members.

I, as usual, put this before The Mother for Her guidance:

“.. After Your reply concerning my proposed trip to Delhi to see Sat
and Mr. Kirpal for our project of Cultural Pavilions, every one of the
Committee members agreed that it was not only necessary, but urgent
and the money should be provided for it. However, it was necessary to
have the consent of X, who too agreed, but gave to Richard a different
interpretation which made me uneasy to accept the money. Here is
my report on the situation. X said: ‘Forget about Kirpal’s organisation
[National Commission for UNESCO]. It does not mean anything forus.’
But Mother, he is not only the President of all the NGOs affiliated with
UNESCO; he is also a member of the Executive Board of UNESCO.
X continued: ‘But you can flatter him and use him for our work and
ask him for a grant of $35,000 from UNESCO for our Youth Festival.’
Mother, I do not say that there is no truth regarding the objectives
X has in view, but my attitude and field of work and the manner
and the approach to the person and the work are quite different. I
can never say or do a thing unless I feel it to be true to me. Besides,
UNESCO does not give cash money. It gives experts in a particular
field or equipment needed for an approved project. Then, I was told
that if I succeed in doing this, my trip would be worth spending
the money. Mother, I can never think and plan in this way.
However, irrespective of such personal differences in our attitude, I
trust X’s intentions and interest in Auroville. But when Richard asked
for money, he was told: ‘What is the hurry?’ He replied: ‘Well, she
wants to go early so that she can work with Dr. Adiseshiah and Mr.
Kirpal together.’ To this X replied: ‘Tell Kailas that she is not going for
Dr. Adiseshiah. He has left UNESCO and he is no longer important.
She must keep her personal relationship and the work separate.’ ...

The Mother heard this with concetrated attention and said softly:

49

“I have told Kailas not to go against her feelings. Sri Aurobindo
is guiding her. She is open to His Force. But do not tell her
this again unless she asks. Give her this blessing packet.” ...

She had sent me back my letter with a blessing packet without writing
a reply. But spontaneously, I said: “She did not say anything?”
At that very moment, I was told what The Mother had said. 301-4

International Conference on Human Unity

On the first of July [1971] I had sent a letter to Dr. Adiseshiah in relation
to the International Conference on Human Unity we had planned for the
celebration of Sri Aurobindo’s Centenary. He replied to me on the third
of July:

“T have your letter of 1 July and the earlier note you sent me on the
Sri Aurobindo Centenary Conference. On the Conference I have no
suggestions to make, because I do not know enough of Sri Aurobindo’s
writings. I have found that it is planned and organised along the right
lines. Iassume that you will have 200 to 250 delegates at the Conference,
so that there could be six committees. Two of today’s crucial questions
do not figure in the draft — namely, the question of war and peace and
the question of poverty.

With regard to Auroville International University, my advice is that
you should see and discuss the whole project with Mr. G. Parthsarthy,
Vice-Chancellor of Jawaherlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is also
a member of the U.N. Secretary General’s Committee which is working
on the World University project. He is also the member of the governing
board of UNITAR and the member of UNESCO’s Committee on this
project. The other groups with whom you should discuss this project are
the Ministry of Education and the National Commission for UNESCO,
in New Delhi.

As far as I am concerned, I have now left behind my concentration
on Education. As I have explained to you, this promotional role which I
took in UNESCO I have completed and therefore I have left that phase
behind. I have no contact with UNESCO now. It is for the new team to
carry forward its task. The same applies regarding my promotional role
for Auroville. I had at no time thought of taking further responsibilities.”

50

I had prepared a paper on Human Unity for the proposed Conference of
Sri Aurobindo Society and gave it to Dr. Adiseshiah for his comments
and suggestions. He replied to me on the sixth September, 1971:

“T have read the working paper on the International Conference that you
left with me. I find it clear, precise and of high quality. It provides an
extremely clear working basis for the Conference and covers all aspects
of man. There is probably need for another working paper to be written
on Sri Aurobindo’s message on Human Unity in the midst of the crisis
that we face in India and the underdeveloped countries. This crisis is
more than a lack of harmony and imbalance between technical progress
and spiritual resources. Such an imbalance is true of the western
technological society. Our crisis in India and the other countries is
the crisis of poverty and the accompaniment of unemployment and
underdevelopment. What is the message of Sri Aurobindo on Human
Unity in relation to this crisis? You might get an economist from the
Society to develop such a paper.” 376-7

1972

In 1972, I wrote to The Mother about the Resolution, introducing to
UNESCO several other projects of Auroville, and The Mother replied:

“Let Sat do as he feels — it is the best. With love and
blessings.” 382-3, F19

...On her forty-sixth birthday, Kailas met the Mother for the last time...

The Mother softly caressed my head and I looked up to her softly smiling
eyes... As I was about to go, She called me again and held my hands
tightly. I bowed my head and She gave me a kiss of Her benedictions
as if to make me feel Her constant Presence with me throughout my
life, as if to see Her Light, guiding my vision for Her work, to sense
in my body Her Divine Ananda coursing though my veins! I was in a
trance and transfixed as She released my hands. I moved away slowly
facing Her in an absolute blissful state without a word of exchange,
not knowing that it was to be my last physical contact with Her.

51

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MESSAGES FROM THE MOTHER TO UNESCO

The task of giving a concrete form to Sri Aurobindo’s vision was
entrusted to the Mother. The creation of a new world, a new humanity,
a new society expressing and embodying the new consciousness is the
work she has undertaken. By the very nature of things, it is a collective
ideal that calls for a collective effort so that it may be realised in the
terms of an integral human perfection.

The Ashram founded and built by the Mother was the first step towards
the accomplishment of this goal. The project of Auroville is the next
step, more exterior, which seeks to widen the base of this attempt to
establish harmony between soul and body, spirit and nature, heaven and
earth, in the collective life of mankind. !

An Avatar is not a human being although he has accepted to use a
human body.”

Auroville is meant to hasten the advent of the supramental Reality upon
earth.

The help of all those who find the world is not as it ought to be is
welcome.

Each one must know if he wants to associate with an old world ready
for death, or to work for a new and better world preparing to be born.’

1 MCWCE, XII, p. 204. Written fora UNESCO committee in 1969. When the Mother
reread this text, in 1972, she added “more exterior”.

2 Special message for UNESCO in view of the celebrations for Sri Aurobindo’s
Centenary.

3 MCWCE, XIII, p. 221. Message for UNESCO, | February 1972.

52

THE WORLD UNIVERSITY FOR HUMAN UNITY

[After the Auroville Foundation Day Kailas Jhaveri forwarded to
UNESCO the following paper, based on Sri Aurobindo’s writings. The
International Cultural Pavilions project is presented for the first time.]

Auroville and the Ideal of Human Unity

It has been customary to dwell on the division and difference between
all nations and especially between the two sections or divisions of the
human family — Orient and Occident — and even oppose them to each
other; but in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s vision, Auroville wants to
insist on oneness and unity rather than on division and difference.

As far back as 1916, Sri Aurobindo wrote: “In Europe and in India,
respectively, the negation of the materialist and the refusal of the ascetic
have sought to assert themselves as the sole truth and to dominate the
conception of life. In India, if the result has been a great heaping up of
the treasures of the spirit... or of some of them... it has also been a great
bankruptcy of life. In Europe, the fullness of riches and the triumphant
mastery of this world’s powers and possessions have progressed
towards an equal bankruptcy of the things of the spirit. Nor has the
intellect, which sought the solution of all problems in the one term of
Matter, found satisfaction in the answer that it has received.

However, East and West, Orient and Occident, have the same
human nature, a common human destiny, the same aspiration after a
greater perfection, the same seeking after something higher than itself,
something towards which inwardly and even outwardly we move. There
is a common hope, a common destiny, both spiritual and material, for
which both are needed as co-workers. It is no longer towards division
and difference that we should turn our minds, but on unity, union, even
oneness necessary for the pursuit and realisation of the common ideal,
the destined goal.’

Further on, Sri Aurobindo says: ‘...a one-sided world would be poorer
for its uniformity and the monotone of the single culture. We must draw
together, and reconcile all highest ways of thinking, feeling and living.
Both tendencies therefore, the mental and the vital and the physical

53

stress of Europe or the Occident and the psychic impulse of India and
the Orient are needed for the completeness of the human movement.
Therefore the time grows ripe and the tendency of the world moves
towards a new and comprehensive affirmation in thought and in inner
and outer experience and to its corollary, a new and rich self-fulfillment
in an integral human existence for the individual and the race.’

In Sri Aurobindo’s view: ‘What the modern spirit has sought for
is the economic social ultimate — an ideal material organisation or
civilisation and comfort, the use of reason and science and education for
the generalisation of the utilitarian social being in a perfected economic
society where it is hoped that he would subordinate his ego for the sake
of the right arrangement of the life of the community. But it has not been
found in experience whatever might have once been hoped that this can
change man, nor can any amount of social and political adjustments
help us to realise the unity of the human race enduringly or fruitfully.
For the way humanity deals with an ideal is to be satisfied with it as an
aspiration, which is for the most part left only as an aspiration, accepted
only as a partial influence. The ideal is not allowed to mould the whole
life, but only more or less to colour it.’

What is needed the most is not just a change of mind or heart or
attitude, but a change of human consciousness. Unless man transcends
himself and comes out of his egoistic and egocentric groove of life and
limited consciousness, there is no hope for humanity. The future of the
world depends on this change of consciousness. It is evident that this
living sense of human oneness and practice of oneness in thought, feeling
and action can only be achieved by the inner change or transformation
of the egocentric human nature and by man’s progression or evolution
to a greater consciousness in which he is universalised and perfected.
There is in the heart of each human being a deep and irresistible urge for
universality and unity. In the welter of forces working in the world today,
Auroville proposes to insist on the development of the psychological
element as a saving factor so that it may grow much deeper into the
roots of our being and become a central or dominant force or a natural
spring of all actions.

As Sri Aurobindo says: ‘It is only when man becomes aware of others
not merely as brothers but as part of himself and he has learned to live
in a large universal consciousness’ that human unity can be realised.

Each human being is consciously or unconsciously seeking harmony

54

within himself and with his environment. But unless he realises the
harmony within himself, it is impossible to realise or to create the
conditions which are externally harmonious. In order to realise this
harmony within, it is necessary to be aware of the nature and needs of
the various parts and planes of one’s being and to train and develop them
around the central self. One of the primary aims of the world university
of Auroville will be therefore to stress on the integral education of one’s
being.

Secondly, as the individual becomes conscious of himself and realises
his true self as distinct from his egocentric and desire-self, not only
the personality of the individual is naturally integrated around his true
self, but he also grows in the awareness of himself as one with others
and further realises others as part of himself. In this awareness of the
essential human unity it is natural for him to harmonise his life with the
life of the social aggregate and aid its growth and perfection, by which
alone can he truly fulfill himself.

We are told by The Mother: ‘Humanity is not the last step in terrestrial
creation. Evolution continues and man will be surpassed.’ In Auroville,
the emphasis therefore will be on this evolutionary urge in each human
being to transcend his egocentric and half-lit humanity so that he may
grow beyond the faltering mental consciousness and step into the
consciousness of the ‘blazing sunlight of the Truth.’ In this supramental
consciousness there is a greater and spontaneous harmony and unity,
because it is the Truth-Consciousness with an inherent and self-existent
knowledge of everything.

This is the inevitable change of consciousness needed to solve all
problems of discord and disharmony between individuals, between
societies, and between individuals and the society or the nations.
The future of mankind depends on this change of consciousness. The
individual as well as the collective effort would be consciously dedicated
towards the expediting of this process of evolution. Consequently,
a complete reorganisation of life and its activities is envisaged in
Auroville on the basis of this change of consciousness.

All the projects of Auroville will be oriented towards bringing about
a change of consciousness, the realisation of human unity and the
manifestation of progressive universal harmony. In the words of Sri
Aurobindo: ‘When we find this oneness, the principle of variation is
not destroyed, but finds rather its justification. It is not by abolishing

55

ourselves, our special temperaments and power that we can get at the
living oneness but by following out and raising it to its highest freedom
and action.’

In conformity with this directive from Sri Aurobindo, the project of
international cultural pavilions will bring the cultural heritage and the
values of all nations and civilisations into close juxtaposition in order
to help individuals to become conscious of the fundamental genius of
the soul of the nation to which they belong and at the same time to put
them into contact with the modes of living of other nations so that they
may know and respect equally the spirit of all countries and realise the
unity behind a multifarious diversity.

The first condition set to live in Auroville is to be convinced of the
essential unity of mankind and the will to collaborate in the material
realisation of that unity. Aspiring to be a centre of evolution and a place
of constant progress and to be, in the words of its Charter, ‘a site of
material and spiritual researches for the living embodiment of the actual
human unity,’ Auroville will be a living symbol of the ideals and values
cherished by all cultures and civilisations throughout the ages and hence
our true and spontaneously living common cultural heritage.” 130-4

[“...Believing that the establishment of an international university,
truly international in character, could contribute to the achievement of
the objectives of the Charter of the United Nations”: this was the object
of the resolution that the General Assembly of the United Nations, of
which U Thant was the Secretary-General, had passed on December
11, 1970; recalling its resolution of 13 December 1969, and recalling
as well the Economic and Social Council resolution of 30 July 1970.
Kailas reported, “...the United Nations had asked UNESCO to establish
a world university with a view to realise human unity. The latter had sent
a circular to all their member-states and affiliated non-governmental
organisations with consultative status, asking them to send a project
report for this university.”’ As a first response Kailas wrote a paper,
reproduced below, which in 1970 was published in “Mother India”, the
Sri Aurobindo Ashram’s cultural review, with the Mother’s approval. In
her autobiography only the synopsis is reproduced. ]

56

Auroville and Education

(This material, consisting of three parts, is compiled from the
following books of Sri Aurobindo: The Life Divine, The Human
Cycle, The Ideal of Human Unity, War and Self Determination and
The Foundations of Indian Culture. There are also excerpts from the
Mother’s writings—her messages to the students and the teachers
of the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, as well as
other works of hers apropos of education and Auroville, including
the Auroville Charter. These excerpts are either woven together
with the passages from Sri Aurobindo or stand ina body on their own. Some
introductory or connective sentences have been added here and there by
the compiler to make the whole a running text appropriate to the theme.)

Compiler’s Introduction

Basically, we may say, “Auroville is Education”; for the educational
future of the world is bound up with this growing City of Dawn
where a new consciousness is to be variously “educed”. But, for
convenience’s sake, we have three sections in the material compiled
here. A paper on Auroville and its raison d’étre precedes that
on Auroville University, and one on Education and Research in
Auroville succeeds it.

The first paper shows how Auroville with its ideology and the
background of cultural pavilions of all nations of the world offers
the right and unique conditions for a free search after the Truth and
hence serves as a necessary basis for the fulfilment of the aims and
objectives of the kind of university envisaged in the second paper.

This paper on Auroville University indicates its lines of
researches, the vision behind them and the programme; its
ideals and aspirations; its aims and objectives; its own unique
contribution and its necessity for humanity. It is an attempt to
sketch in brief the crisis of our age, the basic issue, the proposed
solutions, the reason of their failures to end war and revolutions and
to bring about peace, order and unity by systems of international
law and control of armaments, education, ideal of brotherhood,
religion, etc.; the true solution of all problems and the unique role
of Auroville University, which to state very briefly—adapting
some words of Sri Aurobindo’s and the Mother’s—is as follows:

ay)

A perfected world cannot be created or composed by men who are
themselves imperfect. The conditions under which men live are the
results of their state of consciousness. (“Wars are made in the minds
of men and it is therefore in the minds of men that the defences
of peace must be constructed.” We go a step further and call for a
change of consciousness which alone, we believe, can transform
not only the mind, but all the other members of one’s being, including
the body itself.) To seek to change conditions without changing the
consciousness is a vain chimera. For man is not a machine and cannot
be changed by any machinery of laws, social, political, economic,
religious, or moral. However, a change of consciousness can only
be brought about by a conscious evolutionary process and an
attempt at self-finding, self-perfection and self-transformation.

To be or to transcend and become something or to bring
something high and noble into our being is the whole labour of the
Force of Nature. Knowledge, thought, action, whether social, political,
religious, ethical, economic or utilitarian cannot be the essence or
object of life. They are activities of the powers of being or the
powers of becoming, the dynamis of the Spirit and its means of
discovering what it seeks to be. To be and to be fully is Nature’s
intention and the necessity in Man. To become complete in being,
in consciousness of being, in force of being, in delight of being and to
live in its integrated completeness is the perfect living. To be fully is
to of be universally, to be one with all...

All this implies that the function of the university in Auroville will not
stop with providing conditions and facilities for the development of
all the powers of one’s being through the study of arts, humanities
and sciences and their researches, which are a necessary part of the
disciplines of university education. Through them all and above all,
the true function of this university will be to bring forth from the inner
potentialities of its students a new creation, the creation of a divine race.

The distinguishing feature of Auroville University will therefore be
not only the researches into all that was and even all that exists and
their synthesis—synthesis of all knowledge; synthesis of all aspects
of the Truth; synthesis of all ideologies; synthesis of all realisations
of the Past, Present and Future; synthesis of all cultures; synthesis
of all nations, paving a way for the realisation of human unity in
diversity, peace, development and progress in all parts of the world;

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a bridge between Matter and Spirit or Science and Spirituality;
a bridge between man’s external realisations and his highest
aspirations, etc. The unique contribution of Auroville University
will be a new creation with a new culture that will be integral and
universal, thus changing the whole life of the earth-consciousness
and bringing about a new world order.

The aim of Auroville University will be always to move
forward ceaselessly towards greater and greater perfection by an
endless education, constant progress and a youth that never ages.
We are confident that Auroville will provide the right and necessary
conditions to make a full and free enquiry into the glorious future
of the human race by a rich and vast synthesis of all our gains on the
material and spiritual planes which will fulfill the highest and most
noble aspirations of humanity everywhere.

Auroville: Its Raison d’Etre

At present mankind is undergoing an evolutionary crisis in which is
concealed a choice of its destiny; for a stage has been reached
in which the human mind has achieved in certain directions
an enormous development while in others it stands arrested and
bewildered and can no longer find its way. A structure of the external
life has been raised up by man’s ever-active mind and life-will, a
structure of an unmanageable hugeness and complexity, for the service
of his mental, vital, physical claims and urges, a complex political,
social, administrative, economic, cultural machinery, an organised
collective means for his intellectual, sensational, aesthetic and
material satisfaction. Man has created a system of civilisation which
has become too big for his limited mental capacity and understanding
and his still more limited spiritual and moral capacity to utilise
and manage, a too dangerous servant of his blundering ego and
its appetites. For no greater seeing mind, no intuitive soul of
knowledge has yet come to his surface of consciousness which could
make this basic fullness of life a condition for the free growth of
something that exceeded it.

This new fullness of the means of life might be, by its power
for a release from the incessant unsatisfied stress of his economic and
physical needs, an opportunity for the full pursuit of other and greater

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aims surpassing the material existence, for the discovery of a higher
truth and good and beauty, for the discovery of a greater and
diviner spirit which would intervene and use life for a higher perfection
of the being, but it is being used instead for the multiplication of new
wants and an aggressive expansion of the collective ego.

Science has put at his disposal many potencies of the universal
Force and has made the life of humanity materially one; but what uses
this universal Force is a little human individual or communal ego with
nothing universal in its light of knowledge or its movements, no inner
sense or power which would create in this physical drawing together
of the human world a true life unity, a mental unity or a spiritual
oneness. All that is there is a chaos of clashing mental ideas, urges of
individual and-collective physical want and need, vital claims and
desires, impulses of an ignorant life-push, hungers and calls for life
satisfaction of individuals, classes, nations, a rich fungus of political
and social and economic nostrums and notions, a hustling medley of
slogans and panaceas for which men are ready to oppress and be
oppressed, to kill and be killed, to impose them somehow or other by
the immense and too formidable means placed at his disposal, in the
belief that this is his way out to something ideal.

The evolution of human mind and life must necessarily
lead towards an increasing universality; but on a basis of ego and
segmenting and dividing mind this opening to the universal can only
create a vast pullulation of unaccorded ideas and impulses, a surge of
enormous powers and desires, a chaotic mass of unassimilated
and intermixed mental, vital and physical material of a larger existence
which, because it is not taken up by a creative harmonising light of
the spirit, must welter in a universalised confusion and discord out
of which it is impossible to build a greater harmonic life. Man has
harmonised life in the past by organised ideation and limitation;
he has created societies based on fixed ideas or fixed customs, a fixed
cultural system or an organic life-system, each with its own order;
the throwing of all these: into the melting-pot of a more and more
intermingling life and a pouring in of ever new ideas and motives
and possibilities call for a new, a greater consciousness to meet and
master the increasing potentialities of existence and harmonise them.

Reason and Science can only help by standardising, by fixing
everything into an artificially arranged and mechanised unity of

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material life. A greater whole-being, whole-knowledge, whole-power
is needed to weld all into a greater unity of whole-life. A life of unity,
mutuality and harmony born of a deeper and wider truth of our being
is the only truth of life that can successfully replace the imperfect
mental constructions of the past which were a combination of
association and regulated conflict, an accommodation of egos and
interests grouped or dovetailed into each other to form a society,
a consolidation by common general life-motives, a unification by
need and the pressure of struggle with outside forces. It is such a
change and such a reshaping of life for which humanity is blindly
beginning to seek, now more and more with a sense that its very
existence depends upon finding the way. The evolution of mind working
upon life has developed an organisation of the activity of mind and
use of Matter which can no longer be supported by human capacity
without an inner change. An accommodation of the egocentric human
individuality separative even in association, to a system of living
which demands unity, perfect mutuality, harmony, is imperative. But
because the burden which is being laid on mankind is too great
for the present littleness of the human personality and its petty mind
and small life-instincts, because it cannot operate the needed change,
because it is using this new apparatus and organisation to serve the
old infraspiritual and infrarational life-self of humanity, the destiny
of the race seems to be heading dangerously, as if impatiently and in
spite of itself, under the drive of the vital ego seized by colossal forces
which are on the same scale as the huge mechanical organisation
of life and scientific knowledge which it has evolved, a scale too
large for its reason and will to handle, into a prolonged confusion and
perilous crisis and darkness of violent shifting incertitude. Even
if this turns out to be a passing phase or appearance and a tolerable
structural accommodation is found which will enable mankind to
proceed less catastrophically on its uncertain journey, this can only be
arespite. For the problem is fundamental and in putting it evolutionary
Nature in man is confronting herself with a critical choice which
must one day be solved in the true sense if the race is to arrive
or even to survive. The evolutionary nisus is pushing towards a
development of the cosmic Force in terrestrial life which needs a
larger mental and vital being to support it, a wider mind, a greater
wider more conscious unanimised Life-Soul, Anima, and that again

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needs an unveiling of the supporting Soul and spiritual Self within to
maintain it.

A rational and scientific formula of the vitalistic and materialistic
human being and his life, a search for a perfected economic society
and the democratic cults of the average man are all that the modern
mind presents us in this crisis as a light for its solution. Whatever the
truth supporting these ideas, this is clearly not enough to meet the need
of a humanity which is missioned to evolve beyond itself or, at any
rate, if it is to live, must evolve far beyond anything that it at present
is. A life-instinct in the race and in the average man himself has felt
the inadequacy and has been driving towards a reversal of values or
a discovery of new values and a transfer of life to a new foundation.
This has taken the form of an attempt to find a simple and ready-made
basis of unity, mutuality, harmony for the common life, to enforce it
by a suppression of the competitive clash of egos and so to arrive at a
life of identity for the community in place of a life of difference. But to
realise these desirable ends the means adopted have been the forcible
and successful materialisation of a few restricted ideas or slogans
enthroned to the exclusion of all other thought, the suppression of the
mind of the individual, a mechanised compression of the elements of
life, a mechanised unity and drive of the life-force, a coercion of man
by the State, the substitution of the communal for the individual ego.
The communal ego is idealised as the soul of the nation, the race, the
community; but this is a colossal and may turn out to be a fatal error.
A forced and imposed unanimity of mind, life, action raised to their
highest tension under the drive of something which is thought to be
greater, the collective soul, the collective life, is the formula found. But
this obscure collective being is not the soul or self of the community;
it is a life-force that rises from the subconscient and, if denied the light
of guidance by the reason, can be driven only by dark massive forces
which are powerful but dangerous for the race because they are alien to
the conscious evolution of which man is the trustee and bearer. It is not
in this direction that evolutionary Nature has pointed mankind; this is a
reversion towards something that she had left behind her.

Another solution that is attempted reposes still on the materialistic
reason and a unified organisation of the economic life of the race; but
the method that is being employed is the same, a forced impression
and imposed unanimity of mind and life and a mechanical organisation

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of the communal existence. A unanimity of this kind can only be
maintained by a compression of all freedom of thought and life, and that
must bring about either the efficient stability of a termite civilisation
or a drying up of the springs of life and a swift or slow decadence. It
is through the growth of consciousness that the collective soul and its
life can become aware of itself and develop; the free play of mind and
life is essential for the growth of consciousness; for mind and life are
the soul’s only instrumentation until a higher instrumentation develops;
they must not be inhibited in their action or rendered rigid, unplastic
and unprogressive. The difficulties or disorders engendered by the
growth of the individual mind and life cannot be healthily removed by
the suppression of the individual; the true cure can only be achieved by
his progression to a greater consciousness in which he is fulfilled and
perfected.

An alternative solution is the development of an enlightened reason
and will of the normal man consenting to a new socialised life in which
he will subordinate his ego for the sake of the right arrangement of
the life of the community. If we inquire how this radical change is to
be brought about, two agencies seem to be suggested, the agency of
a greater and better mental knowledge, right ideas, right information,
right training of the social and civic individual and the agency of a
new social machinery which will solve everything by the magic of
the social machine cutting humanity into a better pattern. But it has
not been found in experience, whatever might have once been hoped,
that education and intellectual training by itself can change man;
it only provides the human individual and collective ego with better
information and a more efficient machinery for its self-affirmation, but
leaves it the same unchanged human ego. Nor can human mind and life
be cut into perfection,—even into what is thought to be perfection, a
constructed substitute——by any kind of social machinery; matter can
be so cut, thought can be so cut, but in our human existence matter and
thought are only instruments for the soul and the life-force. Machinery
cannot form the soul and life-force into standardised shapes; it can at
best coerce them, make soul and mind inert and stationary and regulate
the life’s outward action; but if this is to be effectively done, coercion
and compression of the mind and life are indispensable and that again
spells either unprogressive stability or decadence. The reasoning mind
with its logical practicality has no other way of getting the better of

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Nature’s ambiguous and complex movements than a regulation and
mechanisation of mind and life. If that is done, the soul of humanity
will either have to recover its freedom and growth by a revolt and a
destruction of the machine into whose grip it has been cast or escape
by a withdrawal into itself and rejection of life. Man’s true way out is
to discover his soul and its self-force and instrumentation and replace
by it both the mechanisation of mind and the ignorance and disorder
of life-nature. But there would be little room and freedom for such a
movement of self-discovery and self-effectuation in a closely regulated
and mechanised social existence.

There is the possibility that in the swing back from a mechanistic
idea of life and society the human mind may seek refuge in a return
to the religious idea and a society governed or sanctioned by religion.
But organised religion, though it can provide a means of inner uplift for
the individual and preserve in it or behind it a way for his opening to
spiritual experience, has not changed human life and society; it could
not do so because, in governing society, it had to compromise with the
lower parts of life and could not insist on the inner change of the whole
being; it could insist only on a credal adherence, a formal acceptance
of its ethical standards and a conformity to institution, ceremony and
ritual. Religion as conceived can give a religio-ethical colour or surface
tinge,—sometimes, if it maintains a strong kernel of inner experience,
it can generalise to some extent an incomplete spiritual tendency, but
it does not transform the race, it cannot create a new principle of the
human existence. A total spiritual direction given to the whole life and
the whole nature can alone lift humanity beyond itself. Another possible
conception akin to the religious solution is the guidance of society by
men of spiritual attainment, the brotherhood or unity of all in the faith
or in the discipline, the spiritualisation of life and society by the taking
up of the old machinery of life into such a unification or inventing a
new machinery. This too has been attempted before without success;
it was the original founding idea of more than one religion: but the
human ego and vital nature were too strong for a religious idea working
on the mind and by the mind to overcome its resistance. It is only the
full emergence of the soul, the full descent of the native light and power
of the Spirit and the consequent replacement or transformation and
uplifting of our insufficient mental and vital nature by a spiritual and
supramental supernature that can effect this evolutionary miracle.

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At first sight this insistence on a radical change of nature might seem
to put off all the hope of humanity to a distant evolutionary future; for
the transcendence of our normal human nature, a transcendence of our
mental, vital and physical being, has the appearance of an endeavour too
high and difficult and at present, for man as he is, impossible. Even if it
were so, it would still remain the sole possibility for the transmutation
of life; for to hope for a true change of human life without a change of
human nature is an irrational and unspiritual proposition; it is to ask
for something unnatural and unreal, an impossible miracle. But what is
demanded by this change is not something altogether distant, alien to
our existence and radically impossible; for what has to be developed is
there in our being and not something outside it: what evolutionary Nature
presses for, is an awakening to the knowledge of self, the discovery of
self, the manifestation of the self and spirit within us and the release of
its self-knowledge, its self-power, its native self-instrumentation. It is,
besides, a step for which the whole of evolution has been a preparation
and which is brought closer at each crisis of human destiny when the
mental and vital evolution of the being touches a point where intellect
and vital force reach some acme of tension and there is a need either
for them to collapse, to sink back into a torpor of defeat or a repose of
unprogressive quiescence or to rend their way through the veil against
which they are straining. What is necessary is that there should be a
turn in humanity felt by some or many toward the vision of this change,
a feeling of its imperative need, the sense of its possibility, the will
to make it possible in themselves and to find the way. That trend is
not absent and it must increase with the tension of the crisis in human
world-destiny; the need of an escape or a solution, the feeling that there
is no other solution than the spiritual cannot but grow and become more
imperative under the urgency of critical circumstance. To that call in
the being there must always be some answer in the Divine Reality and
in Nature.

The conditions under which men live upon earth are the result of
their state of consciousness. To seek to change conditions without
changing the consciousness is a vain chimera. All who have had the
perception of what could be and should be done to improve the situation,
in the different domains of human life, economical, political, social,
financial, educational or sanitary are precisely the individuals who have
developed their consciousness more or less to an exceptional degree

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and put themselves in contact with higher planes of consciousness. But
their ideas remained on the whole theoretical; or, if an attempt was ever
made to realise them practically, it always failed lamentably in the long
or short run: for no human organisation can change radically unless
human consciousness itself changes. Prophets of a new humanity have
followed one another, religions, spiritual or social, have been created,
their beginnings were at times full of promise: but, as humanity was
not transformed at heart, the old errors arising from human nature
itself have reappeared gradually and after a time it was found that one
was left almost at the same spot from where one had started with so
much hope and enthusiasm. In this effort, however, to improve human
conditions there have always been two tendencies, which although
apparently contrary to each other should rather be complementary and
together work out the progress. One seeks a collective reorganisation,
something that would lead towards an effective unity of mankind:
the other declares that all progress is made first by the individual and
insists that it is the individual who should be given conditions in which
he can progress freely. Both are equally true and necessary, and our
effort should be directed along both the lines. Collective progress and
individual progress are interdependent. Before the individual can take a
leap forward, it is necessary that something of an antecedent progress be
achieved in the collective life. A way has therefore to be found whereby
the twofold progress can go on simultaneously. It is in answer to this
pressing need that the township of “AUROVILLE” is proposed as a
Centre of Universal Education and Culture, so that the élite of humanity
may be ready who would be able to work for the progressive unification
of the race and who at the same time would be prepared to embody the
new force descending upon earth to transform it.

The unity of the human race can be achieved neither through
uniformity nor through domination and subjection. A synthetic
organisation of all nations, each one occupying its own place in
accordance with its own genius and the role it has to play in the
whole, can alone effect a comprehensive and progressive unification
which may have some chance of enduring. And if the synthesis is to
be a living thing, the grouping should be done around a central idea as
high and wide as possible, and in which all tendencies, even the most
contradictory, would find their respective places. That idea is to give
man the conditions of life necessary for preparing him to manifest the

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new force that will create the race of tomorrow.

All urge of rivalry, all struggle for precedence and domination
should disappear giving place to a will for harmonious organisation,
for clear-sighted and effective collaboration. To make this possible,
children from their very early age must be accustomed not merely to
the idea but to its practice. The cultures of the different regions of the
earth will be represented here in such a way as to be accessible to all,
not merely intellectually, in ideas, theories, principles, and languages,
but also vitally in habits and customs, in art under all forms—painting,
sculpture, music, architecture, decoration and physically too through
natural scenery, dress, games, sports, industries and food.

A kind of world-exhibition has to be organised in which all the
countries will be represented in a concrete and living manner; the ideal
is that every nation with a very definite culture would have a pavilion
representing that culture, built on a model that most displays the habits
of the country: it will exhibit the nation’s most representative products,
natural as well as manufactured, products also that best express its
intellectual and artistic genius and its spiritual tendencies. Each nation
would thus find a practical and concrete interest in cultural synthesis
and collaborate in the work by taking over the charge of the pavilion
that represents it. A lodging house also could be attached, large or
small according to need, where students of the same nationality would
be accommodated; they will thus enjoy the very culture of their own
motherland, and at the same time receive at the centre the education
which will introduce them as well to other cultures existing upon earth.
Thus the international education will not be simply theoretical, on the
school bench, but practical in all details of existence.

A general idea of the organisation is only given here: the application
in details will be gradually carried out as the Township develops.

The first aim then will be to help individuals to become conscious
of the fundamental genius of the nations to which they belong and at
the same time to put them in contact with the modes of living of other
nations so that they may know and respect equally the true spirit of all
the countries upon earth. For all world organisation to be real and to
be able to live, must be based upon mutual respect and understanding
between nation and nation as well as between individual and individual.
It is only in the collective order and organisation, in a collaboration
based upon mutual good-will that lies the possibility of man being lifted

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out of the painful chaos where he is now. It is with this aim and in this
spirit that all human problems will be studied in “AUROVILLE”.

Auroville International University

I become what I see in myself. All that thought suggests to me, I can do.
All that thought reveals in me I can become.

A university by its very origin and nature is a universal institution,
its boundaries conterminous with the boundaries of the universe.

But there are no boundaries to man’s insatiable thirst for Knowledge,
his inexhaustible and ceaseless search after the Truth, his deep seeking
for Beauty and Love, his secret aspiration to expand and become one
with the universe, to touch, to feel, to experience and to enjoy the
Infinite, to meet, to clasp and to possess the Eternal.

Progress
Towards the ‘Synthesis of Science and Spirituality

Progress is the very heart of the significance of human life, for it means
our evolution into a greater and richer being, and this our present age, by
insisting on it, by forcing us to recognise it as our aim and our necessity,
by making impossible hereafter the attempt to subsist in the dullness or
gross beatitude of a stationary self-content, has done a precious service
to the earth-life.

Anunbiased view will regard this age of civilisation as an evolutionary
stage, an imperfect but important turn of the human advance, where
great gains have been made which are of the utmost value to ultimate
perfection, even if they have been made at a great price. There is not
only a greater generalisation of knowledge and the more thorough use
of the intellectual power and activity in multiple fields; there is not
only the advance of science and its application to the conquests of our
environment, an immense apparatus of means, vast utilisations, endless
minute conveniences, an irresistible machinery, a tireless exploitation
of forces; there is, too, a certain development of powerful, if not high-
pitched ideals and there is an attempt, however external and therefore
imperfect, to bring them to bear upon the working of human society as
a whole. Once restored to its true movement, the inner life of man will
find that it has gained in materials, in power of plasticity, in a new kind
of depth and wideness, a salutary habit of many-sided thoroughness and

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a sincere endeavour to shape the outer collective life into an adequate
image of our highest ideals.

We, of the coming day, stand at the head of a new age of development
which must lead to a new and a large synthesis of all truths everywhere.
To entrench ourselves within the bounds of any one ideology or system
of thought, to adhere to any one theistic religion or social and political
creed would be to limit ourselves and to attempt to create our life out
of the being, knowledge and nature of others, instead of building it out
of our own being and potentialities. A mass of new material is flowing
to us from all sides. The luminous secrets of the Past, long lost to the
consciousness of mankind, too, are breaking out again from behind the
veil. We have not only to assimilate the influences of the great theistic
religions of the world and recover their true meaning, their stuff of
permanent truth constantly reshaped and developed in the inner thought
and spiritual experience of developing humanity so that they may be
of a living importance to mankind, but also we must take full account
of the potent revelations of modern knowledge and seeking and equip
ourselves with the advantages of science and technology.

Towards the Synthesis of Past, Present and Future

The Past is our foundation, the Present our material, and the Future our
summit. We should be the children of our glorious Past, possessors of the
Present, and creators of the Future. We do not belong to the past dawns,
but to the noons of the Future. In Auroville University, it will be our
attempt to evaluate the totality of the Past in relation to the potentialities
of the Future. All this points to a new, very rich and vast synthesis.
A fresh and widely embracing harmonisation of our gains is therefore
both an intellectual and a spiritual necessity of the Future. “Taking
advantages of all discoveries from within and without,” Auroville aspires
“to boldly spring towards future realisations,” thus building a bridge
between outer eternal realisations and the highest inner aspirations.

Towards the Synthesis of All Cultures

The aim of Auroville will be to promote research in order to enrich all
cultures, and raise the level of spiritual and material life in all parts of
the world and create a climate of understanding and appreciation of
the values of all cultures and civilisations. But Auroville anticipates
a new creation with a new culture that will be synthetic and universal

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and will therefore include in its study and research at its University
all the latest and future possible achievements and experiments of
Science and Technology with an equal importance and emphasis on
the revelations of spiritual research. And thus combining the two—
Science and Spirituality—it will hew a new path for the Future of
Peace, Knowledge, Unity and Progress. East and West will meet from
two opposite sides and merge into each other and found in the life of a
unified humanity a common world culture and a common world order,
obeying the law of the Truth.

Towards Change and Reconstruction

It is one of those vast critical moments in the life of the race when
all is pressing towards change and reconstitution. The ideals of the
Future, especially the ideals of freedom, equality, commonalty, unity,
are demanding to be brought from their limited field in the spiritual
life or the idealism of the few and to be given some beginning of a
true soul of action and bodily shape in the life of the race. But banded
against any such fulfilment there are powerful obstacles, and the
greatest of them come not from outside but from within. For they are
the old continued impulsions and obstinate recalcitrance of mankind’s
past nature, the almost total subjection of his normal mind to egoistic,
vital and material interests and ambitions which make not for union but
for strife and discord, the plausibilities of the practical reason which
looks at the possibilities of the day and the morrow and shuts its eyes
to the consequences of the day after, the habits of pretense and fiction
which impel men and nations to pursue and forward their own interests
under the camouflage of a specious idealism, a habit made up only
partly of the diplomatic hypocrisy of politicians, but much more of a
general half-voluntary self-deception and finally, the inrush of blinder
unsatisfied forces and crude imperfect idealisms to take advantage of
the unrest and dissatisfaction prevalent in such times and lay hold for a
while on the life of mankind.

Peace

War and violent revolution can be eliminated, if we will, though not
without immense difficulty, but on the condition that we get rid of the
inner causes of war and injustice of which violent revolutions are the
natural reactions. The limitations of armies and armaments, is an

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illusory remedy.

Even if there could be found an effective international means of
control, it would cease to operate as soon as the clash of war actually
came. The European conflict has shown that in the course of war, a
country can be turned into a huge factory of arms and a nation convert
its whole peaceful manhood into an army. The development of
international law into an effective force which will restrain the egoism
of individuals is another solution which still attracts and seems the most
practicable to most when they seek to deal with the difficulties of the
future. But not even the construction of a stronger international law
with a more effective sanction behind it will be an indubitable or a
perfect remedy.

The real truth, the real cause of the failure is that internationalism
is yet, except with some exceptional men, merely an idea; it is not yet a
thing near to our vital feelings or otherwise a part of our psychology.

What the modern spirit has sought for is the economic social
ultimate,—an ideal material organisation of civilisation and comfort,
the use of reason and science and education for the generalisation of a
utilitarian rationality which will make the individual a perfected social
being in a perfected economic society... It is hoped that by a radical
change brought about through the agency of a greater and better mental
knowledge, right ideas, right information, right training of the social
and civic individual, he will subordinate his ego for the sake of the right
arrangement of the life of the community. But it has not been found
in experience, whatever might have once been hoped, that education
and intellectual training by itself can change man; it only provides that
human individual and collective ego with better information and a more
efficient machinery, but leaves it the same unchanged human ego. For
the way that humanity deals with an ideal is to be satisfied with it as an
aspiration which is for the most part left only as an aspiration, accepted
only as a partial influence. The ideal is not allowed to mould the whole
life, but only more or less to colour it...

The idealist, the thinker, the philosopher, the poet and artist, even the
moralist, all those who live much in ideas, when they come to grapple
at close quarters with practical life seem to find themselves something
at a loss and are constantly defeated in their endeavour to govern life
by their ideas. But even the man who is capable of governing his life
by ideas, who recognises, that is to say, that it ought to express clearly

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conceived truths and principles of his being or of all beings and tries to
find out or to know from others what these are, is not often capable of
the highest, the free and disinterested use of his rational mind. As others
are subjected to the tyranny of their interests, prejudices, instincts or
passions, so he is subjected to the tyranny of ideas. Indeed, he turns his
ideas into interests, obscures them with his prejudices and passions, and
is unable to think freely about them, unable to distinguish their limits or
the relation to them of other different and opposite ideas and the equal
right of these also to existence. Ideals and idealists are necessary; ideals
are the savour and sap of life, idealists the most powerful diviners and
assistants of its purposes. But reduce your idea to a system and it at
once begins to fail ... the ideas themselves are partial and insufficient;
not only have they a very partial triumph, but if their success were
complete, it would still disappoint, because they are not the whole truth
of life and therefore cannot securely govern and perfect life.

Life escapes from the formulas and systems which our reason labours
to impose on it; it proclaims itself too complex, too full of infinite
potentialities to be tyrannised over by the arbitrary intellect of man.

So long as war does not become psychologically impossible, it will
remain or, if banished for a while, return.

War itself, it is hoped, will end war; the expense, the horror,
the butchery, the disturbance of tranquil life, the whole confused
sanguinary madness of the thing has reached or will reach such colossal
proportions that the human race will fling the monstrosity behind it
in weariness and disgust. But weariness and disgust, horror and pity,
even the opening of the eyes to reason by the practical facts of the
waste of human life and energy and the harm and extravagance are not
permanent factors; they last only while the lesson is fresh. Afterwards,
there is forgetfulness; human nature recuperates itself and recovers
the instincts that were temporarily dominated. A long peace, even a
certain organisation of peace, may conceivably result, but so long as
the heart of man remains what it is, the peace will come to an end;
the organisation will break down under the stress of human passions.

We of today have not the excuse of ignorance since we have before
us perfectly clear ideals and conditions. Freedom and unity, the self-
determination of men and nations in the framework of a life drawn
together by co-operation, comradeship, brotherhood if it may be, the
acceptance of a close interrelation of the common aims and interests of

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the race, an increasing oneness of human life in which we cannot deny
any longer to others what we claim for ourselves,—are things of which
we have formed a definite conception. The acknowledgement of them
is there in the human mind, but not as yet any settled will to practise.

The question now put by evolving Nature to mankind is whether
its existing international system, if system it can be called, a sort
of provisional order maintained with constant evolutionary or
revolutionary changes cannot be replaced by a willed and thought out
fixed arrangement, a true system, eventually a real unity—serving all
the common interests of the earth’s peoples.

The hopes, the ideals, the aspirations that are abroad in mankind
are themselves so many severe and pregnant questions put to us, not
merely to our intelligence but to the spirit of our being and action...
and the gain they will bring to humanity depends on the spirit which
governs us during the time of their execution. For these ideals stand
and they represent the greater aims of the spirit in men which through
all denials obstacles and imperfections of his present incomplete nature
knows always the perfection towards which it moves and the greatness
of which it is capable. Circumstances and force and external necessity
and past nature may still be too strong for us, but if the light of the
ideal is kept burning in its flame of knowledge and its flame of power
it will seize even on these things and create out of their evil its greater
inevitable good. At present it may seem only an idea and a word unable
to become a living reality, but it is the Idea and the Word expressing
what was concealed in the Spirit which preside over the creation. The
time will come when they will be able to seize on the Force that works
and turn it into the instrument of a greater and fairer creation. The
nearness or the distance of the time depends on the fidelity of the mind
and will of man to the best that he sees and the insistence of his self-
knowledge, unobsessed by subjection to the circumstances he suffers
and the machinery he uses, to live out its truth within himself so that his
environment may accept it and his outward life be shaped in its image.

Unity
Internationalism

The idea of humanity as a single race of beings with a common life
and a common general interest is among the most characteristic and
significant products of modern thought. It is founded on a view of

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things which looks at man in his manhood only and casts away all
those physical and social accidents of birth, rank, class, colour, creed,
nationality, which have been erected into so many walls and screens
behind which man has hidden himself from his fellowmen...

The height and nobility of the idea is not to be questioned and certainly
a mankind which sets its life upon this basis would make a better, purer,
more peaceful and enlightened race than anything we can hope to have
at present. But as the human being is now made, the pure idea, though
always a great power, is also afflicted by a general weakness. For man
at present lives more in the outward than in the inward, is governed
principally by his vital existence, sensations, feelings and customary
mentality rather than by his higher thought-mind, and feels himself in
this to be really alive, really to exist and be, while the world of Ideas
is to him something remote and abstract and, however powerful and
interesting in its way, not a living thing; the pure idea seems, until it
is embodied in life, something not quite real; in that abstractness and
remoteness lies its weakness... Life accepts it as a partial habit, but not
completely, not quite sincerely.

In the crises of life it is the primary vital necessity which tells, while
the other and remoter element betrays itself to be a mere idea not yet
ready for accomplishment; it can only become powerful when it also
becomes either a vital or a psychological necessity. A living sense of
human oneness in thought, feeling and life must always remain the
injunction of the Spirit within us to human life upon earth. The saving
power needed is a new psychological factor which will at once make
a united life necessary to humanity and force it to respect the principle
of freedom.

Possibilities of Unification and their Shortcomings:
Ego — the Chief Obstacle

If we consider the possibilities of a unification of the human race on
political, administrative and economic lines, we see that a certain
sort of unity or first step towards it appears not only to be possible
but to be more or less urgently demanded by an underlying spirit
and sense of need in the race. This spirit has been created largely by
increased mutual knowledge and close communication, partly by
the development of wider and freer intellectual ideals and emotional
sympathies in the progressive mind of the race...

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The real strength of this new tendency is in its intellectual, idealistic
and emotional parts. Its economic causes are partly permanent and
therefore elements of strength and secure fulfilment, partly artificial
and temporary and therefore elements of insecurity and weakness.
The political incentives are the baser part in the amalgam; their
presence may even vitiate the whole result and lead in the end
to a necessary dissolution and reversal of whatever unity may be
initially accomplished. A common, intellectual, and cultural activity
and progress may do much, but need not by themselves be sufficient to
bring into being the fully powerful psychological factor that would be
required.

Individual and group harmonies of a comparative and qualified
completeness are created, a social cohesion is accomplished; but in
the mass, the relations formed are constantly marred by imperfect
sympathy, imperfect understanding, gross misunderstandings, strife,
discord, unhappiness. It cannot be otherwise so long as there is no
true union of consciousness founded upon a nature of self-knowledge,
inner mutual knowledge, inner realisation of unity, concord of our
inner forces of being and inner forces of life. In our social building we
labour to establish some approach to unity, mutuality, harmony, because
without these things there can be no perfect social living, but what
we build is a constructed unity, an association of interests and egos
enforced by law and custom and imposing an artificial, constructed
order in which the interests of some prevail over the interests of others
and only a half-accepted, half-enforced, half-natural, half-artificial
accommodation keeps the social whole in being. Between community
and community there is still worse accommodation with a constant
recurrence of the strife of collective ego with collective ego. This
is the best that we can do and all our persistent readjustments of the
social order can bring us nothing better than an imperfect structure
of life.

Brotherhood

Brotherhood is the real key to the triple gospel of the ideal of
humanity—liberty, equality, fraternity. The union of liberty
and equality can only be achieved by the power of human
brotherhood and it cannot be founded on anything else. But
brotherhood exists only in the soul and by the soul; it can exist by

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nothing else. For this brotherhood is not a matter either of physical
kinship or of vital association or of intellectual agreement. Only
when man has developed not merely a fellow-feeling with all men,
but a dominant sense of unity and commonality, only when he is
aware of them not merely as brothers—that is a fragile bond—but
as parts of himself, only when he has learned to live, not in his
separate personal and communal ego-sense but in a large universal
consciousness, can the phenomenon of war, with whatever weapons,
pass out of his life without the possibility of return. Meanwhile
that he should struggle even by illusions towards that end is an
excellent sign; for it shows that the truth behind the illusion is
pressing towards the hour when it may become manifest as reality.

Everything depends, first, upon the truth of our vision, secondly,
upon the sincerity with which we apply it, last and especially, on
the inwardness of our realisation. Vain will be the mechanical
construction of unity, if unity is not in the heart of the race and
if it be made only a means for safeguarding and organising our
interests.

Change of Consciousness—the Solution

No change of ideas or of the intellectual outlook upon life,
no belief in God or Avatar or Prophet, no victorious science or
liberating philosophy, no social scheme or system, no sort of
machinery internal or external, can really bring about the great
desire implanted in the race, true though that desire is in itself
an the index of the goal to which we are being led. Because man
is himself not a machine nor a device, but a being and a most
complex one at that, therefore he cannot be saved by machinery;
only by an entire change which shall affect all the members of his
being, can he be liberated from his discords and imperfections.
Until man in his heart is ready, a profound change of the world
conditions cannot come; or it can only be brought about by force,
physical force or else force of circumstances and that leaves all the
real work to be done. A frame may have then been made, but the
soul will have still to grow into that mechanical body.

Inner Perfection

The one safety for man lies in learning to live from within outward,

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not depending on institutions and machinery to perfect him, but out
of his growing inner perfection availing to shape a more perfect
form and frame of life; for by this inwardness we shall best be able
both to see the truth of the high things which we now only speak
with our lips and form into outward intellectual constructions,
and to apply their truth sincerely to all our outward living. It is
through the growth of consciousness that the collective soul and
its life can become aware of itself and develop; the free play of
mind and life is essential for the growth of consciousness; for
mind and life are the soul’s only instrumentation until a higher
instrumentation develops; they must not be inhibited in their action
or rendered rigid, unplastic and unprogressive. The difficulties
or disorders engendered by the growth of the individual mind
and life cannot be healthily removed by the suppression of the
individual; the true cure can only be achieved by his progression
to a greater consciousness in which he is fulfilled and perfected.
Man’s true freedom and perfection will come when the Spirit
within bursts through the forms of mind and life and winging above
to its own gnostic fiery heights of ether turns upon them from that
light and flame to seize them and transform into its own image.

Difference between the Methods of Religion and Spirituality

Human society itself never seized on the discovery of the soul
as a means for the discovery of the law of its own being or on a
knowledge of the soul’s true nature and need and its fulfilment as
the right way of terrestrial perfection. So far as it saw in religion
a means of human salvation and perfection, it laid hands upon it
at once to mechanise it, to catch the human soul and bind it on the
wheels of socio-religious machinery, to impose on it in the place of
spiritual freedom an imperious yoke and an iron prison. It saddled
upon the religious life of man a Church, a priesthood and a mass
of ceremonies and set over it a pack of watchdogs under the name
of creeds and dogmas. The supreme truths are neither the rigid
conclusions of logical reasoning nor the affirmations of credal
statements, but fruits of the soul’s inner experience.

So far as we really succeed in living for others, it is done by an
inner spiritual force of love and sympathy; but the power and field

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of effectuality of this force in us are small, the psychic movement
that prompts it is incomplete, its action often ignorant because
there is contact of mind and heart but our being does not embrace
the being of others as ourselves. An external unity with others
must always be an outward joining and association of external
lives with a minor inner result; the mind and the heart attach their
movements to this common life and the beings whom we meet
there but the common external life remains the foundation,— the
inward constructed unity, or so much of it as can persist in spite of
mutual ignorance and discordant egoism, conflict of mind, conflict
of heart, conflict of vital temperaments, conflict of interests, is a
partial and insecure superstructure.

The spiritual consciousness, the spiritual life reverses this
principle of building; it bases its action in the collective life upon
an inner experience and inclusion of others in our own being, an
inner sense and reality of oneness. Spirituality respects the freedom
of the human soul, because it is itself fulfilled by freedom; and
the deepest meaning of freedom is the power to expand and grow
towards perfection by the law of one’s nature.

Freedom and Mutuality

Man does not actually live as an isolated king, nor can he grow by
an isolated freedom. He grows by his relations with others and his
freedom must exercise itself in a progressive self-harmonising with
the freedom of his fellow-beings. The law of our self-determination
has to wed itself to the self-determination of others and to find the
way to enact a real union through this mutuality. But its basis can
only be found within and not through any mechanical adjustment.
It lies in the discovery within by the being in the course of his
self-expansion and self-fulfilment that these things at every turn
depend on the self-expansion and self-fulfilment of those around
us, because we are secretly one being with them and one life. Each
being has his own truth of independent self-realisation and his truth
of self-realisation in the life of others and should feel, desire, help,
participate more and more, as he grows in largeness and power, in
the harmonious and natural growth of all the individual selves and
all the collective selves of the one universal being.

That which we are has expressed itself through the individual,

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but also through the universality, and though each has to fulfill
itself in its own way, neither can succeed independently of the
other. The society has no right to crush or efface the individual
for its own better development or self-satisfaction; the individual,
so long at least as he chooses to live in the world, has no right
to disregard for the sake of his own solitary satisfaction and
development his fellow-beings and to live at war with them or seek
a selfishly isolated good...

For the only things that we can really call our rights are those
conditions which are necessary to our free and sound development,
and that again is our right because it is necessary to the development
of the world and the fulfilment of the destiny of mankind.

The law for the individual is to perfect his individuality by free
development from within, but to respect and to aid and be aided
by the same free development in others. His law is to harmonise
his life with the life of the social aggregate and to pour himself
out as a force for growth and perfection on humanity. The law for
humanity is to pursue its upward evolution towards the finding
and expression of its highest aspirations and perfection taking full
advantage of the free development and the gains of all individuals
and nations and groupings of men, to work towards the day when
mankind may be really and not only ideally one family.

The social evolution of the human race is necessarily a
development of the relations between three constant factors:
individuals, communities of various sorts and mankind. Each seeks
its own fulfilment and satisfaction but each is compelled to develop
them not independently but in relation to the others. The perfect
society will be that which most entirely favours the perfection of
the individual; the perfection of the individual will be incomplete
if it does not help towards the perfect state of the social aggregate
to which he belongs and eventually to that of the largest possible
human aggregate, the whole of a united humanity.

The object of all society should be, therefore, and must become,
as man grows conscious of his real being, nature and destiny and
not as now only of a part of it, first to provide the conditions of
life and growth by which individual Man,—not isolated men or a
class or a privileged race, but all individual men according to their
capacity,—and the race through the growth of its individuals may

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travel towards this perfection. For civilisation can never be perfect or
safe so long as, confining the cultered mentality to a small minority,
it nourishes in its bosom a tremendous mass of ignorance, a multitude.

Towards World Union

Humanity is one, but different peoples are variant soul-forms of the
common humanity. When we find the oneness, the principle of variation
is not destroyed but finds rather its justification; it is not by abolishing
ourselves, our own special temperament and power, that we can get at
the living oneness, but by following it out and raising it to its highest
possibilities of freedom and action. The nations should therefore
become conscious not only of their own but of each other’s genius and
soul, and learn to respect, to help and to profit, not only economically
and intellectually but subjectively and spiritually by each other. For
the final end is a common world-culture in which each national culture
should be, not merged into or fused with some other culture differing
from it in principle or temperament, but evolved to its full power and
could then profit to that end by all the others as well as give its gains and
influences to them, all serving by their separateness and their interaction
the common aim and idea of human perfection.

The peoples of humanity must be allowed to group themselves
according to their free-will and their natural affinities; no constraint
or force could be allowed to compel an unwilling nation or distinct
grouping of peoples to enter into another system or join itself or
remain joined to it for the convenience, aggrandisement or political
necessity of another people or even for the general convenience
in disregard of its own wishes. Unity would be the largest principle of
life, but freedom would be its foundation-stone.

Man’s communities are formed not so much by the instinctive herding
together of a number of individuals of the same genus or species as
by local association, community of interests, and community of ideas;
and these limits tend always to be overcome in the widening of human
thoughts and sympathies brought about by the closer intermingling
of the races, nations, interests, ideas, cultures. Still, if overcome in
their separatism, they are not abolished in their fact, because they
repose on an essential principle of Nature,—diversity in unity. And
so, a free world union must in its very nature be a complex unity
based on diversity and diversity must be based on self-determination.

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A spiritual oneness which would create a psychological oneness not
dependent upon any intellectual or outward uniformity and compel a
oneness of life not bound up with its mechanical means of unification,
but ready always to enrich its secure unity by a free inner variation and
a freely varied outer self-expression, this would be the basis for a
higher type of human existence.

Could such a realisation develop rapidly in mankind, we might then
solve the problem of unification in a deeper and truer way from the
inner truth to the outer forms. Until then, the attempt to bring it about
by mechanical means must proceed. But the higher hope of humanity
lies in the growing number of men who will realize this truth and seek
to develop it in themselves, so that when the mind of man is ready
to escape from its mechanical bent,—perhaps when it finds that
its mechanical solutions are all temporary and disappointing,—the
truth of the Spirit may step in and lead humanity to the path of its
highest possible happiness and perfection.

The indwelling deity who presides over the destiny of the race
has raised in men’s mind and heart the idea, the hope of a new
order which will replace the old unsatisfactory order, and substitute
for it conditions of the world’s life which will in the end have a
reasonable chance of establishing permanent peace and well-being.
This would for the first time turn into an assured fact the ideal
of human unity which, cherished by a few, seemed for so long a
noble chimera; then might be created a firm ground of peace and
harmony and even a free room for the realisation of the highest
human dreams, for the perfectibility of the race, a perfect society,
a higher upward evolution of the human soul and human nature. It
is for the men of our day and, at the most, of tomorrow to give the
answer.

The Central Aim: New Creation
A Race of Gnostic Beings—a Race of Gods

A perfected human world cannot be created by men or composed of men
who are themselves imperfect. Even if all our actions are scrupulously
regulated by education or law or social or political machinery, what will
be achieved is a regulated pattern of minds, a fabricated pattern of lives,
a cultivated pattern of conduct; but a conformity of this kind cannot
change, cannot re-create the man within, it cannot carve or cut out a

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perfect soul or a perfect thinking man or a perfect or growing living
being. For soul and mind and life are powers of being and can grow but
cannot be cut out or made; an outer process or formation can assist or
can express soul and mind and life but cannot create or develop it. One
can indeed help the being to grow, not by an attempt at manufacture, but
by throwing on it stimulating influences or by lending to it one’s forces
of soul or mind or life; but even so the growth must still come from
within it, determining from there what shall be made of these influences
and forces, and not from outside. This is the first truth that our creative
zeal and aspiration have to learn, otherwise all our human endeavour is
foredoomed to turn in a futile circle and can end only in a success that
is a specious failure.

Self-transcendence and Self-fulfillment

To be or become something, to bring something into being is the
whole labour of the force of Nature; to know, feel, do are subordinate
energies that have a value because they help the being in its partial
self-realisation to express what it is and help it too in its urge to
express the still more not yet realised that it has to be. But knowledge,
thought, action,—whether religious, ethical, political, social, economic,
utilitarian or hedonistic, whether a mental, vital or physical form or
construction of existence,—cannot be the essence or object of life; they
are only activities of the powers of being or the powers of its becoming,
dynamic symbols of itself, creations of the embodied spirit, its means of
discovering or formulating what it seeks to be. The tendency of man’s
physical mind is to see otherwise and to turn the true method of things
upside down, because it takes as essential or fundamental the surface
forces or appearances of Nature; it accepts her creation by a visible or
exterior process as the essence of her action and does not see that it is
only a secondary appearance and covers a greater secret process.

To become ourselves is the one thing to be done; but the true
ourselves is that which is within us, and to exceed our outer self of body,
life and mind is the condition for this highest being, which is our true
and divine being, to become self-revealed and active.

To be and to be fully is Nature’s aim in us; but to be fully is to be
wholly conscious of one’s being: unconsciousness, half consciousness
or deficient consciousness is a state of being not in possession of
itself; it is existence, but not fullness of being. To be aware wholly and

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integrally of oneself and of all the truth of one’s being is the necessary
condition of true possession of existence. This self-awareness is what is
meant by spiritual knowledge: the essence of spiritual knowledge is an
intrinsic self-existent consciousness; all its action of knowledge, indeed
all its action of any kind, must be that consciousness formulating itself.
All other knowledge is consciousness oblivious of itself and striving to
return to its own awareness of itself and its contents; it is self-ignorance
labouring to transform itself back into self-knowledge.

But also, since consciousness carries in itself the force of existence,
to be fully is to have the intrinsic and integral force of one’s being; it is
to come into possession of all one’s force of self and of all its use. To
be merely, without possessing the force of one’s being or with a half-
force or deficient force of it, is a mutilated or diminished existence; it
is to exist, but it is not fullness of being. ... Power of self is the sign
of the divinity of self. Lastly, to be fully is to have the full delight of
being. Being without delight of being, without an entire delight of
itself and all things is something neutral or diminished; it is existence,
but it is not fullness of being. This delight too must be intrinsic, self-
existent, automatic; it cannot be dependent on things outside itself:
whatever it delights in, it makes part of itself, has the joy of it as part
of its universality. All undelight, all pain and suffering are a sign of
imperfection, of incompleteness; they arise from a division of being,
an incompleteness of consciousness of being, an incompleteness of
the force of being. To become complete in being, in consciousness of
being, in force of being, in delight of being and to live in this integrated
completeness is the divine living.

But again, to be fully is to be universally. To be in the limitations of
a small restricted ego is to exist, but it is an imperfect existence: in its
very nature it is to live in an incomplete consciousness, an incomplete
force and delight of existence. It is to be less than oneself and it brings
an inevitable subjection to ignorance, weakness and suffering: or even
if by some divine composition of the nature it could exclude these
things, it would be to live in a limited scope of existence, a limited
consciousness and power and joy of existence. All being is one and to
be fully is to be all that is. To be in the being of all and to include all in
one’s being, to be conscious of the consciousness of all, to be integrated
in force with the universal force, to carry all action and experience in
oneself and feel it as one’s own action and experience, to feel all selves

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as one’s own self, to feel all delight of being as one’s awn delight of
being is a necessary condition of the integral divine living.

But thus to be universally in the fullness and freedom of one’s
universality, one must be also transcendentally. The spiritual fullness of
the being is eternity; if one has not the consciousness of timeless eternal
being, if one is dependent on body or embodied mind or embodied
life, or dependent on this world or that world or on this condition of
being or that condition of being, that is not the reality of self, not the
fullness of our spiritual existence... But one must transcend not only
the individual formula but the formula of the universe, for only so can
either the individual or the universal existence find its own true being
and a perfect harmonisation... Otherwise the individual may remain
subject to the cosmic movement and its reactions and limitations and
miss his entire spiritual freedom. He must enter into the supreme divine
Reality, feel his oneness with it, live in it, be its self-creation: all his
mind, life, physicality must be converted into terms of its Supernature;
all his thought, feelings, actions must be determined by it and be it,
its self-formation. All this can become complete in him only when he
has evolved out of the Ignorance into the Knowledge and through the
Knowledge into the supreme delight of existence; but some essentiality
of these things and their sufficient instrumentation can come with the
first spiritual change and culminate in the life of the gnostic supernature.

Adventure of Consciousness and Living

Education in Auroville will not be a mere acquisition of knowledge,
of inert ideas and information, nor only the knowledge of the why and
wherefore of the facts surrounding and pertinent to life, but an art of
utilisation of knowledge, a living experience and an art of becoming.
And so, at Auroville University, life will be studied, experienced and
experimented upon too, in its multifarious activities and its possibilities
of infinite relationships. Auroville will be the place of an unending
education, of constant progress and a youth that never ages.

To know, possess and be the divine being in an animal and egoistic
consciousness, to convert our twilight or obscure physical mentality into
the plenary supramental illumination, to build peace and a self-existent
bliss where there is only a stress of transitory satisfactions besieged by
physical pain and emotional suffering, to establish an infinite freedom
in a world which presents itself as a group of mechanical necessities, to

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discover and realise the immortal life in a body subjected to death and
constant mutation,—this is offered to us as the manifestation of God in
Matter and the goal of Nature in her terrestrial evolution. To the ordinary
material intellect which takes its present organisation of consciousness
for the limit of its possibilities, the direct contradiction of the unrealised
ideals with the realised fact is a final argument against their validity. But
if we take a more deliberate view of the world’s workings, that direct
opposition appears rather as part of Nature’s profoundest method and
the seal of her completest sanction.

For all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.
They arise from the perception of an unsolved discord and the instinct
of an undiscovered agreement or unity. To rest content with an unsolved
discord is possible for the practical and more animal part of man, but
impossible for his fully awakened mind, and usually, even his practical
parts only escape from the general necessity either by shutting out
the problem or by accepting a rough, utilitarian and unillumined
compromise. For essentially, all Nature seeks a harmony, life and
matter in their own sphere as much as mind in the arrangement of its
perceptions. The greater the apparent disorder of the materials offered
or the apparent disparateness, even to irreconcilable opposition of the
elements that have to be utilised, the stronger is the spur, and it drives
towards a more subtle and puissant order than can normally be the result
of a less difficult endeavour.

Science itself begins to dream of the physical conquest of death,
expresses an insatiable thirst for knowledge, is working out something
like a terrestrial omnipotence for humanity. Space and Time are
contracting to the vanishing-point in its works, and it strives in a hundred
ways to make man the master of circumstance and so lighten the fetters
of causality. The idea of limit, of the impossible begins to grow a little
shadowy and it appears instead that whatever man constantly wills,
he must in the end be able to do; for the consciousness in the race
eventually finds the means.

Education is life in pursuit of the Truth in all its manifold aspects
and a constant research for the harmonisation of these aspects,
however disparate, opposite, contradictory or contrary. And life is an
endless adventure of consciousness unto the Unknown, probing into its
mysteries to constantly renew and enrich itself.

The Unknown is not the Unknowable; it need not remain the

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unknown for us, unless we choose ignorance or persist in our first
limitations. For to all things that are not unknowable, all things
in the universe, there correspond in that universe faculties which
can take cognisance of them, and in man, the microcosm, these
faculties are always existent and at a certain stage capable of
development. We may choose not to develop them; where they
are partially developed, we may discourage and impose on them
a kind of atrophy. But, fundamentally, all possible knowledge is
knowledge within the power of humanity.

Evolution
Supramental Consciousness and New Faculties

There is an ascending evolution in Nature which goes from the
stone to the plant, from the plant to the animal, from the animal
to man. Evolution continues and Man will be surpassed. For
man is a transitional being living in a mental consciousness, but
having the possibility of acquiring a new consciousness, the Truth-
consciousness, and capable of living a life perfectly harmonious,
good and beautiful, happy and fully conscious.

One of the most important researches in Auroville will be regarding
the principle and the process of evolution, which will be scientifically
studied and will be used to expedite the next step of the evolution of the
human race, to bring forth the latent faculties of Man and a change of
consciousness. For the future of humanity depends upon this change of
consciousness. In this connection, the psychological discipline of the
Yoga as developed and perfected by Sri Aurobindo will be studied as
one of the primary and essential methods for a conscious evolution
and a change of human consciousness, transcending the present
limited and divisive, ego-centric mental consciousness of man. The
new consciousness, which Sri Aurobindo terms the supramental
consciousness or the Truth-consciousness, is consciousness creatrix
of the world, a state of Knowledge and Will at once, with a clear
vision of the totality and Power to effectuate its vision. It is the
unifying consciousness because it views all things ina multiple unity.

To see things steadily and see them as a whole is not possible to
the mind, but it is the very nature of the transcendent Supermind.
The mind sees only a given time and space and views many
possibilities pell-mell as all more or less realisable in that time

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and space; the Supermind sees the whole extension of Time and
Space and can embrace all the mind’s possibilities and many
more not visible to the mind, but without any error, groping or
confusion; for it perceives each potentiality in its proper force,
essential necessity, right relation to the others and the time, place
and circumstance, both of its gradual and its ultimate realisation.
There is a spontaneous harmony and unity of all knowledge and
truths in this consciousness, because it is the Truth-consciousness
with an inherent and self-existent Knowledge and Power to realise
its vision.

Since the primary aim of Auroville is to establish the supreme
harmony everywhere,—within the individual, in his relation
with his fellow-beings, and his surroundings, the community, the
nation and the world, between all aspects of the Truth, between
Man, Nature and God, between the two poles of existence,
Spirit and Matter,—and to bring about a new creation and
a new world order with a new culture, changing the whole life
of the earth-consciousness, this study and the possibility of the
conscious advent of the new consciousness, its application to
all problems of life, and its manifestation in all the activities
and the manifold relationships of life, will be the most crucial
research and the salient contribution of Auroville University.

Education and Research in Auroville

The education of a child in Auroville will begin with the education of
his mother. For the nature of the child depends very much upon the
mother, her aspiration and will and upon the material surroundings
in which she lives. In order to be able to educate the child, the first
thing to do is to educate oneself, to be master of oneself, and to be
oneself what one wants the child to be. One must always be very
patient, and never be arbitrary, despotic or ill-tempered. The part
of education that the mother has to go through is to see that her
thoughts are always beautiful and pure, her feelings always noble
and fine, her material surroundings as harmonious as possible.

In his formative years, the child in Auroville will grow through all sorts
of work in play and play in work in an environment of love, understanding,
freedom and flexibility, and through all that may interest him he will

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be guided 1) to observe, to concentrate, to question and to experience;
2) to master a few languages which he can speak, read and understand
with ease, including classical and international languages; 3)
to develop the capacity to learn and to use the documentation. What
is most important at this stage is for the child to develop the power of
concentration and identification, self-confidence and readiness to learn
more and more, the qualities of endurance, self-poise and persistence
against difficulties and obstacles, truthfulness and courage, goodwill,
generosity and nobility, sensitivity, right attitude and response to the
light of the Truth.

He will not be stuffed therefore with academic courses and factual
knowledge which he can always acquire later according to his aspiration
and needs. As he grows, he will find for himself—or with the assistance of
an adult who will be more of a friend than a teacher—what are his natural
aptitudes and interests and what are the possibilities of widening the
vistas of his knowledge and consciousness. He will develop the ability to
reflect, to seek and discover for himself the truths by which he will live,
and he will be helped to grow in him a tireless capacity for experimentation
and innovation. He will also be aided by spiritually awakened persons
who may, more by their example and living than by instructions,
awaken him to the existence of the Divine Reality within him, his soul,
to whom he can refer for true guidance in dealing with the problems of
life. For ultimately, it is the soul which is the true teacher and Guide.

All efforts will therefore be directed to help the individual to become
conscious of this true Guide within so that he may learn to follow as he
grows an inner discipline proper to the aspirations of his soul, and not the
discipline of others imposed on him by the conventions of the ordinary
institutes and the society. The only indispensable quality required of a
student as well as of a teacher—and of all Aurovilians—is the constant
aspiration and the will to learn and to progress endlessly without fatigue
towards a greater and greater perfection with a spontaneous joy in the
effort for progress, not for obtaining a result, but for the love of the
effort. This joy is realised and the energy for such an endless effort is
obtained only when the soul is made the leader of the march. For the
soul is ever in contact with the inexhaustible energy and the splendours
of the Superconscient from which it derives its origin. All that one needs
to do is to sincerely aspire and to open oneself to its influence in faith
and with sincerity and confidence.

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The centre of all education, of all teaching and training, of all
learning, is Man, Man in all his glory, in his divinity. It must be the aim
of education to make him the master of his destiny and the lord of his
universe. All that is vital to the glorious Future of Man, he will learn in
Auroville so that he may become Man the god, from Man the animal
and Man the thinker.

Each human being has in him something divine, something his own
and unique, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a
sphere. But it is only when man rises at the summit of his ascent into a
spiritual being that he can realise his divine manhood and manifest the
Divine in all its glory of Love, Knowledge, Power and Perfection—the
highest that he can dream of—whatever be his field of action. So, the
fundamental aim of education in Auroville will be to put the individual
in contact with his soul and then help him to find, in the light of his soul,
his own indispensable place in the orchestra of the whole. Auroville
hopes to provide the right conditions and environment as well as the full
facilities to help the individual to bring out all that is best in him and to
make it perfect for a noble use so that he may fulfill his unique role and
his mission on earth.

The primary discipline necessary for this is for the individual
to observe and become conscious of himself, conscious of all the
instruments of his being—physical, vital, mental, psychic and spiritual—
and their workings, to develop, transform and organise them around the
divine centre of his being. It is through the psychic presence that the
individual comes into contact with the truth of his being. In most cases
this presence acts, so to say, from behind the veil, unrecognised and
unknown. However, it is only when it comes forward and takes the lead
that the individual goes through life with an assurance and a certitude all
his own and becomes the master of his destiny. This is the psychological
discipline of the integral Yoga, which is absolutely indispensable if
one wants to know and express the highest truth of one’s being, and
if one aspires that all one’s actions, thoughts and feelings, even the
very sensations and impulsions may manifest the supreme beauty and
splendours which one so often receives in one’s awakened thoughts and
visions when one opens oneself to the light of the Superconscient.

The education in Auroville will be therefore integral, aiming at the
development, transformation and perfection ofall the parts of one’s being
so as to build an all-round personality which is beautiful, harmonious,

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sensitive, supple, luminous and powerful in all its movements of mind,
life and body, and selfless, heroic and noble in its actions. For this an
individual may be required to go through the study of all arts, aesthetics,
humanities and sciences whicheach can choose according to his capacities
and needs of self-perfection, self-expression and _ self-fulfilment.

It is evident that there will be no fixed courses or curricula, nor tests,
degrees and diplomas which have value only if one wants to earn money
or a good name and position according to the standard and values set by
the conventions of the ordinary world.

In Auroville which aspires to build a new world of the Future,
individual value and sincerity of the person would have a greater
importance than the worldly cleverness or material wealth and social
position. Since Auroville aspires to be the place of eternal youth, of an
endless education and constant progress, degrees and diplomas, giving
a false sense of satisfaction of having completed one’s education will
have no value and will be naturally out of place. Education in Auroville
will be for the joy of knowledge and for the joy of becoming, for the joy
of self-perfection and self transcendence, for the joy of self-fulfillment
and world-fulfillment.

The chief aim of education in Auroville will be to help each man
to seek for and to manifest the Divine in every way of his being,
and to so find it and live in it that no matter how—even in all kinds
of ways—he lives and acts, he shall live and act in the Divine, in the
Spirit, in the eternal Reality of his being, manifesting its truth and its
law; and to discover the truth behind the veil of forces in the universe, to
disengage the divine Reality behind everything and to work for its full
manifestation.

Some of the programmes and projects of research and education in
Auroville will be: to know the secrets of Nature and of life; to know
oneself and to be the master of oneself, of life, of Nature; to seek after
the Truth and perfection; to surmount within oneself all weaknesses,
incapacities and the falsehoods of Ignorance; to conquer the causes
of sufferings, illnesses, war and miseries; to vindicate the rights and
the dignity of Man by helping him to transcend his half-lit humanity
and fumbling mental-ethical consciousness and its conflicting laws; to
eradicate Ignorance and the divisions of the egocentric consciousness
by a change of Consciousness which is the inevitable further step in
human evolution; to enrich the existing faculties and bring forth new

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ones; to triumph over one’s limitations, narrowness, rigidity of views
and prejudices by constantly widening one’s horizon of comprehension
in the light of the Truth-Consciousness; to harmonise all the parts of
one’s being, integrate the personality and to be the whole Man of the
Future, embodying the new consciousness, which transcends the limited
and divisive consciousness of the present Man; to perfect and transform
all the instruments of one’s being into powers of the spirit so as to
manifest the divine Reality within; to perfect and synthetise knowledge
in each field and to integrate all fields of knowledge; to perfect each
culture and to unify all cultures; to discover the particular genius and
the role of each nation in the comity of all nations and to integrate the
human race; to develop and use the resources, experiments and benefits
of science and technology for the amelioration of mankind; to march
unto the Unknown by constantly searching and making new discoveries
on the spiritual and material planes so as to find new ways of enriching
life; and thus to progress always towards ever more perfection and a
more noble and truer life, the higher and vaster life of the Future, the
life of Truth, Knowledge and Power, of Love, Unity and Bliss, making
the whole life of the earth beautiful, divine.

All of Auroville in its entirety and in its details of all activities and
organisation will engage itself in this educational process and will be a
laboratory for this experiment, where no problem of life and its manifold
relationships on all levels of action will escape the scrutiny and the study
of its citizens. Auroville, being dedicated to the whole of humanity,
will naturally seek all ways and means for the fulfilment of its highest
aspirations, and will be a training institute for the whole of humanity, a
fully equipped, intellectually alive and spiritually inspiring home for all
men, women and children, who will learn together to live in oneness and
who will live together to learn all the time, at each moment of their life.

Education in Auroville being a conscious experiment of living and
an adventure of consciousness, the scope of its research being as wide
as the universe, its aim being an advent of a new race of gnostic beings,
it will naturally embrace the Infinite in its infinite aspects and move
towards a progressive universal harmony. The cultural pavilions of
all nations of the world will not only provide a right setting for this
purpose, but also afford the unique opportunity and the facilities for its
manifold researches for a living embodiment of an actual human unity.

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[A digression is necessary in order to introduce in proper historical
context — the crucial years that followed the 1968 students’ revolt in
the affluent countries — the theme of all-life education, propounded
by avant-garde elite appointed by UNESCO to do research on a new
cultural paradigm.

“The late 1960s were years of striking contrasts: after the destructions
and losses caused by the Second World War, the industrial countries
had made a surprisingly fast recovery. Social change had accompanied
economic growth with an ensuing rise in standards of living. Newly
independent countries were attempting their economic take-off
and the notion of the contribution of education to development
was accepted. In developing and industrialized countries alike,
enrolment figures were reaching levels never seen before. Yet, the
organization of education systems, their methods and their contents
remained substantially the same and the goals of education had not
been redefined to match the challenges of the emerging new world.
This led to unrest among students, generally referred to as the 1968
education crisis which started in the United States and France, but
soon spread to a large number of countries. In 1970, René Maheu,'
then Director-General of UNESCO, thought that the time was ripe to
set up an International Commission on the Development of Education
which was to submit its report in 1972. The Commission, chaired by
Edgar Faure’, former Prime Minister and Minister of Education of
France at the time of the 1968 crisis, was composed of six eminent
members selected in their personal capacity as high-level educators
or scientists, former ministers or international civil servants.’

The outcome of the Commission’s studies was ‘Learning to Be’, which
refers to the role education ought to play in developing the complete

1 René Maheu (1905-1975), a close friend of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir,
was a French professor of philosophy and the sixth Director-General of UNESCO,
1962-1974, for two successive mandates.

2 In his youth a radical and a Maquis partisan during the French Resistance to the
Nazis, Edgar Faure (1908-88) was a politician, essayist, historian, and memoirist. He
was twice the Prime Minister of France during the fifties; in this capacity he was one
of the “big four” of the Geneva Conference (with Eisenhower, Bulganin and Eden).
He was also Minister of Finance, Foreign Minister, Minister of Agriculture, Minister
of Education, Minister of Social Affairs, and President of the National Assembly.
Appointed Minister of Education after the student rebellion in May—June 1968, in 1972
Faure was appointed Minister of Social A ffairs.

3 www.unesco.org/education/educprog/S0y/brochure/maintrus/35.htm

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person in all its dimensions. This UNESCO publication is also known
as the 1972 Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on
the Development of Education, which Edgar Faure chaired in 1971-
72. The Commission’s task was to ponder upon overall solutions to the
major challenges confronting educationists in a fast changing world.
“These ideas, well received by educators, were widely discussed. Their
application, however, seems to have been partial and fragmentary.
Moreover, it is possible that the future role assigned to education by
this Commission might have been considered too ambitious, and that
it expected too much of education. Nevertheless, the ideas of lifelong
education and ofa learning society seem to have remained entirely valid,
and can serve as a grid for analysis as well as principles for action. The
report remains one of the most complete and boldest attempts to derive
the educational implications of societal change and of the impact on
society of the on-going scientific revolution.”

Translated into thirty-three languages, ‘Learning to Be’ has had a
major impact on education policies around the world and is still being
reprinted in the third millennium. Such was the chessboard on which
Kailas, the Mother's finely attuned instrument, was called to play.
Pondering over the Faure report, Kailas wrote to Dr. Adiseshiah: ]

“T thought of preparing a commentary on the report with a view to initiate
a basis of collaboration between UNESCO and Auroville International
University, especially since Dr. Faure himself expressed in his letter to
me the concord between the two. However, I believe that the concept of
Auroville, its thesis and programme are better defined and go beyond
the vision of this report. In my view, ‘a critical reflection and overall
solution to the problems involved in the development of education in
this changing universe’ offered here fall short of my expectations. I
would be grateful for your advice in this matter. To give you an idea, the
following questions arise in my mind concerning the four assumptions
mentioned in the letter of Dr. Faure to the Director-General:

1. ‘Humanity is one in its aspirations and the problems and difficulties
it faces in the realisation of these aspirations are shared in common.
And in spite of all diversities and differences of approach and degrees
of development, it moves towards the same destiny.’

Q. What is this destiny? This is extremely important to know, because
1 Ibid.

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our understanding of the true nature of these problems and difficulties
as much as the solutions offered will, I believe, depend upon our
understanding of the destiny of mankind. It is only in the light of this
vision that the problems become clearly defined and the precise and
effective solutions can be found.

2. ‘Belief in democracy, defined as each man’s right to realise his
own potential and to share in the building of his own future.’

Q. This is extremely important. But how is this freedom to be
guaranteed? Is it by democratising education through student
participation in determining both the content and the method of
education? Do they know what they want and how to achieve it? What
about the freedom of teachers? What is the role of a planner and an
administrator in such a situation?

3. ‘The aim of development is the complete fulfillment of man in all
the richness of his personality and the complexity of the forms of his
expression.’

Q. How is this fullness to be known and educed? What kind of
education can develop and bring out this fullness for its complete
manifestation? What is the highest and widest possibility of a complete
man?

4. ‘Only a lifelong overall education can produce a complete man.
Hence the important point is to learn how to build up a continually
evolving body of knowledge all through life — to learn to be.’

Q. Is knowledge an acquisition or a revelation? If knowledge is a
process or means ‘to be’, where is the source of knowledge? If the
source is outside of oneself, what is it that relates it to the individual
and affects him so that he can learn to be? If the source of knowledge
is within oneself, what is the kind of education that can evoke it for
manifestation and what will be its method?

I believe we all agree that ‘the traditional formulas and partial reforms
cannot meet the unprecedented demands for education arising out of the
new tasks and functions to be fulfilled.’

I have attempted the study of the basic issues in my compilation on
‘Auroville and Education’ while offering Sri Aurobindo’s analysis of
the crisis of our age, the proposed solutions, the reason of their failures
and the unique role of Auroville. Since you are convinced that Auroville
offers a hope for humanity to come out of its present chaos, your help
in making this hope a reality will be greatly appreciated. What is your

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advice in this matter?”

I received a reply to this letter from Dr. Adiseshiah:

“T have your letter concerning the Faure Report and Auroville. Your
analysis is in accordance with Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy on education.
Here are my detailed comments:

1. In planning for education one could either deal with the specific
issues faced by the local community or the common issues faced by
several countries and communities. Auroville is rightly following
the latter alternative. The overall purpose of education is (a) the full
development of human personality, (b) preparing to meet the needs of
the country and (c) contributing to peace and progress.

2. The democracy embodied in higher education has two aspects.
First there is an unwritten contract between the teacher and the taught
for a free learning on both sides. Second, there has to be a conscious
decision to widen the participation base of higher education so that it is
not confined to the economic and intellectual elite.

3. The development of mind in all its fullness has implications for
(a) curriculum and syllabus, (b) teaching and learning methods and (c)
their application. What is involved is an attitude and technique to be
applied to all departments of learning.

4. Knowledge is a continuous process of learning both about oneself
and about the external reality. That is why learning must both be self-
learning and learning from others and other sources. There isno either/or.”

I wrote the following after receiving his answer:

... First, I must admit that Sri Aurobindo’s views on education as
presented by me are at times my own complex deductions on the basis
of his exposition of the constitution and psychology of Man and his
analysis of the universal forces at work for the individual and collective
perfection. Nedless to say, I am in perfect agreement with you. I
believe it is a question of emphasis on our different view points, not of
dichotomy.

I do understand that a rationalist mind is too arrogant and self-
confident to accept my proposition that spiritual education is an
inevitable necessity for the full development of man’s total personality
and might even condemn it all as ‘metaphysics, mysticism and
moonshine!’ Perhaps, behind this refusal to admit the realities of the

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Spirit is a lack of vision or a fear of a new adventure unto the Unknown.
But once this leap is taken, even the rationalist would be happy to find
that this all-embracing and all-comprehensive Reality is immanent in
men and the world.

However, I do firmly believe that if we are to achieve our goal of total
peace, development and progress, it is necessary to include spiritual
education in our curriculum. Does not the situation in India and in the
world at large prove that if we are to widen our basis of higher education
and make the world safe for true democracy, spiritual education — by
which one becomes conscious of the whole world as a part of oneself —
is an imperative first step? I believe it is only on the spiritual basis of the
Truth that the world can be solidly integrated for a mutual collaboration
and fulfilment. I need not write all this to you since it is engraved in the
constitution of UNESCO and you know it all too well.

Only, while planning for education it is all too often forgotten that
for ‘learning to be,’ man must dive down deep below and soar higher
than the mental, vital and physical surface of individual and universal
Nature and know the powers that control him and the world. This alone
can help him to come out of his present imperfection and impotence.

The distinction of the elite therefore on the basis of economic
and intellectual attainment does not seem to be of much value if this
spiritual consciousness is missing. Hence again, the primary emphasis
on spiritual — as distinct from moral education — so as to preserve our
“dying race’ and re-create, rather new-create it.

I wish to clarify that for Sri Aurobindo and The Mother there is no
‘either/or’ situation in the totality of their vision except when it comes
to a conscious choice between Truth and Falsehood and then it becomes
a question of integrity and sincerity or willful perversity in action. I
believe all progress depends upon this choice. Hence the inevitable
emphasis on spiritual education or the knowledge of the Truth without
which total peace and development on a secure foundation do not
seem possible, whether it is a question of individual, social, national or
international peace and development.

This surely does not imply a negation of education from other
individuals and sources. On the contrary, I whole heartedly agree and
accept that there is an occasion to learn from others and from other
sources. Yet, it seems that the doors of perception and comprehension
remain open or closed according to the degree of consciousness and the

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effort of the will. I am fascinated by the challenge of evermore learning
and I cherish my lessons with deep gratitude, however contrary to all I
know when they come from persons of sincerity, integrity and goodwill.
Besides, it is so interesting to look at the world from various angles and
harmonise all aspects of the Truth.

Regarding your comment (2), I suppose that there is an unwritten
contract in any relationship between conscious beings and freedom must
be its foundation-stone. But my question was concerning the freedom
of teachers and the external authorities since that freedom is missing.
Maybe I am a spiritual anarchist, but for me freedom and spontaneity
seem to be indispensable laws of life for all conscious beings. Naturally
I distinguish freedom from license, but that is the matter of awakening
and this is the concern of spiritual education.

If you agree, well, here is the crucial question — will it be possible
for you to help in the preparation and the realisation of the prospective
plan for this University-to-be so as to finally integrate the possibilities
of international research and development on both the material and
spiritual planes for an actual embodiment or a living expression of
human unity, peace and progress for the whole of humanity?

I ask because the Madras Institute for Development Studies is
interested in an action-oriented project and Auroville seems to
be the most realistic project with its proposal for an international
university and permanent cultural pavilions of all nations
fulfilling your objectives of lifelong education, development,
employment opportunities, eradication of poverty in Tamilnadu
and India and a better life for all. With best wishes.” 242-7

*

[Kailas sent her report on Auroville International University to Mr.
Jagbans Balbir, the head of the UNESCO Dept. of Education in Paris,
with the following letter: ]

“Dear Mr. Balbir,

This letter is in response to the questionnaire sent to us by UNESCO
for the feasibility report on the proposal to establish an International
University. Though in principle we agree with the underlined aims and
objectives to be realised through this university, we feel that the concept
and scope of such a university as well as its method of education would

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have to be radically changed if we are to achieve our aim of human
unity, peace and development in a true and effective way.

It is difficult for us, therefore, to answer these questions which, in our
view, presuppose certain things and do not envisage what to us seems
most crucial. However, within the framework given, we put forward
the following — with certain reservation, qualification and amendment
as our answers, which you may consider in the light of the solution
offered by Sri Aurobindo to come out of our present chaos, and its
experimentation over the past fifty years in Sri Aurobindo Ashram and
the Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education.

On our part, we are convinced that ‘a perfected world cannot be
created by men who are themselves imperfect.’ For, ‘the conditions
under which men live are the result of their consciousness and to change
the conditions without changing the consciousness is a vain chimera.’
The basic problem, in our view, is Man himself and the solution of
all problems lies within himself. No machinery, however equipped and
powerful, therefore, can change Man or solve his problems unless and
until he consents to transcend himself and transform his ego-centric
consciousness into a universal consciousness where he is perfected and
fulfilled.

Secondly, we feel that a remodelled structure on the old foundations
of academic university courses — without any provision of the spiritual
education that can help man not only to discover and master himself
but to change his very psychology — may not adequately answer to the
needs and aspirations of humanity which is constantly impelled to push
towards the Future. It seems better therefore to have a completely new
institution which takes its experience from the past in the light of the
future needs though built on the present available material and spiritual
resources.

Thirdly, it seems to us that there must be a living relation between the
university and society where all that is learned is not just the theories
from books written by others, but something that is pertinent to the
experience of the individual in relation to his society, and which is
enriched by the experiences of others with the possibilities of their
own experimentation. This presupposes the concept of a society that
is equally growing with the learning and experience of the individuals
who compose it and not a closed society with its fixed codes of laws,
conventions and rituals of conduct. In other words, it should be a

98

free world of individual possibilities as well as interdependence and
mutuality based on the laws of oneness and on the supreme Truth.

Fourthly, in order to ensure the international character of such
a University and to provide the rich material of knowledge and true
understanding of the role of each nation for the future of humanity,
there should be a free scope for all the nations of the world to blow
in the fragrance of their own culture, their own particular genius and
unique contribution in the field of ideas and activities. Auroville has
proposed a project of permanent cultural pavilions of all nations where
each could have its own library, museum or exhibition halls, as well
as residential houses for students, teachers and delegates. This project,
as you know, has been unanimously accepted by the resolutions of the
General Conference of UNESCO and commended for participation
by all nations. These pavilions, in our view, could serve as national
campuses as well as clearing houses for information and exchanges
between the international university and the home universities and
research centres.

Besides, this project would ensure an education which would be
integral and provide us with the basis for ‘a new and comprehensive
affirmation in thought and in inner and outer experience and as its
corollary a new and rich self-fulfillment in an integral human existence
for the individual and the race.’

Finally, we envisage the possibility of this university having its
own satellite communication system which can serve its purpose
ideally if it finds an environment which is free from all politics and
narrow self-interests, above all prejudices of race, nationalities,
ideologies, religions, creeds and all that is contrary to the spirit of
the Truth. This may also offer participation by all with all, for all,
at the highest level.” 248-50

Answers to the Questionnaire
on the World University for Human Unity

From Questions 3, 4.

“All the objectives mentioned on pages 3 and 4 are good and
necessary for an intellectual appraisal and enlightenment. But in our
view, mind is not an instrument of knowledge and the possibilities of

99

an integral approach which can harmonise all aspects of the Truth and
which alone can provide the true solution to our problems of opposing
ideologies, belong to a new consciousness beyond the ranges of the
mental consciousness. The usefulness of these meetings, seminars and
conferences will depend upon those who can bring the light of this
consciousness to bear upon the problems that confront us and offer a
solution that is synthetic and universal.

We propose not just a forum for discussion and responsible
confrontation but in addition to it, a ground for a free and sincere
experimentation and implementation of the ideals preached, individually
and collectively, and on the basis of this experience a conscious search
within oneself for the problem and its solution.

pp.4-5. Possible areas deserving study and research

All this seems to us to be the symptoms of the problem and not
the basic problem which is Man, his nature and his destiny and this
alone can constitute a solid basis for study and research along with all
the problems of his relationships, activities and organisation on the
individual, national and international levels which can be studied with
some hope for an answer.

p.5 (3).

It seems that everything in this world is interrelated and no problem
can be solved in isolation without being related to some other problem
of a global nature. Nothing is truly solved till all is solved. Perhaps,
many of these problems would not exist if man consented to live a life
in accordance with the truth of his being. And so, a priority may be
given to the group (IV): a reflection of the means to ensure an active
and effective solidarity among peoples and nations and on the problems
of the future of mankind.

A partial list of certain fundamental issues in relation to the crisis
of our age and some pertinent subjects for programmes and studies of
research is separately given for the realisation of the objectives of the
proposed international university.

p.6 (4) Functions.

We live in a very fast moving world ‘where today’s knowledge
becomes tomorrow’s debris.’ Besides, nothing can be taught that is
not lived and experienced. Degrees and diplomas do not always give

100

the measure of the person’s knowledge, nor his capacity to impart
knowledge. But above all, though information can be given, knowledge
has to be educed from the substance of the student in relation to his
object of study and pertinent to his own life. Much depends on the
individual value of the teacher, his own experience and his relation with
the student rather than his degree or diploma.

Yes, both types of teaching seem to be possible since whatever may
be the degree or the diploma of the teacher, he must in order to be a good
teacher always keep learning. ‘The teacher teaches what he knows, and
what he has discovered and learnt by the action of the student, who adds
some new facts and in any case, a new dimension and wider optic to
what he already knows.’

p.6 (5)

Yes, all the problems plus the issues mentioned in the attached paper
can be included in the programme of studies, provided it is kept in mind
that the basic problem and the solution is Man himself and what is
required is a change of consciousness.

p.6 (6)

We feel that it should be an international centre of education for all,
irrespective of age, position, class, creed, nationality, sex, vocation,
ideology, cultural or any other accidental or preferred background.

If we are to have a solid foundation for the realisation of our
objectives, the right type of education must begin at the very beginning,
while the child is being formed in the womb of its mother and must
continue for the whole life. In other words, in our view a university
at post-graduate or even graduate level will not serve the purpose of
realising our fundamental aims and objectives. It must be a universal
centre of education for the whole of the life of man from his very birth.

Visiting officers and research workers from all walks of life from
anywhere can participate at any level in the programme of this
international centre of education, provided they are sincere in their will
to collaborate with the aims of the university.

p.6 (7)

Certificates could be given on the basis of individual performance of
the work, skill, competence and achievement as well as on the basis of the
value of the person, his sincerity, will and effort towards perfection in his
field of study or research. However, degrees, diplomas and certificates

101

given on the basis of tests and examinations seem to be obsolete.

p.7 (9)

The content of education and the programme of study and research
in such a centre must be left flexible to include whatever may be
pertinent to the realisation of its objectives as well as what may ensure
a spontaneous and organic growth and its expansion into the future that
constantly invades us with its unexpected possibilities and splendours.

What seems imperative to us is the integration of all knowledge so
that ‘a new and comprehensive affirmation in thought and in inner and
outer experience and as its corollary, a new and rich self-fulfillment in
an integral existence for the individual and for the race, may be secured.’

There must be ‘an integral education which can bring back the
legitimate authority of Spirit over Matter fully developed and utilised.’

We must never forget that ‘the object of all development and education
is the awakening of Man’, and that this international centre of education
must be ‘a site for the development of material and spiritual resources
in order to realise the living embodiment of an actual human unity.’

We propose therefore an additional list of projects and research
concerning Man, his nature and his destiny whichis, in our view, to evolve
beyond his half-lit humanity and its divisive mental consciousness. We
also propose another list of projects or programmes for research and
study as outlined in UNESCO’s publication for the next development
decade, Let My Country Awake, inasmuch as it stresses the need for
integral development and provides a valuable basis, offering guidelines
for the implementation of the progrmme. For, we feel that education,
if it is to be effectively useful, must be action-oriented and provide an
opportunity for practical experimentation.

p.8 (10)

A select or choice staff of dedicated persons, like international civil
servants, who would be prepared to go through the experiment to the
very end, seems to be ideally desirable. However, we prefer a framework
of less rules and enough flexibility to ensure a free, spontaneous and
healthy growth so that those who may find this university to be an
opportunity to fulfill their common objectives and are sincere in their
aspiration and will to collaborate in its programme may be able to
participate freely.

102

p.8 (11)

Information and documentation of all kinds could be made available
to those who may find it useful for their purpose. The United Nations
should have its own liaison office to handle the dissemination of
pertinent information. If such a World University could be established
in Auroville, it would have an additional advantage of the cultural
pavilions of all nations which might serve equally as liaison between the
University and the research centres and university institutions at home.

p.9 (12) Possible Models.

It seems to us that only projects like Auroville which is designed to
be a universal township with associated projects — cultural pavilions
of all nations, an airport, an aviation centre, a hospital and associated
medical centres, a theatre and an Olympic stadium, agricultural farms
and orchards as well as industrial estates, science and technological
centres of research for an integral development of material resources
for the amelioration of mankind, spiritual centres and research for the
integral development of man, his future evolution and transformation,
and various other possibilities of research which may help humanity to
live as one single family — can adequately answer the needs envisaged
in the proposed three models. For, the results of the research made in
Auroville will be freely available to all. And ifa satellite communication
system is placed at its disposal, all will be able to participate in its
programmes.

We conceive of the entire township of Auroville as a universal centre
of integral education where the cultures of all nations will freely manifest
their genius and will be helped to raise to their maximum possibilities
their contribution to humanity. It is intended that the nationals of each
country will not only become conscious of their own but of each
other’s unique contribution and learn to respect, to help and to profit
economically, intellectually, subjectively and spiritually by each other.
For, the final aim of Auroville is acommon world culture in which each
national culture should be, not merged into or fused with some other
culture different from it in principle and temperament, but evolved to
its full power and could then profit to that end by all the others and give
its gains too, all serving by their separateness and their interaction the
common aim and ideal of human perfection. ‘Unity would be thus the
largest principle of life, but freedom would be its foundation-stone.’

103

The aim of Auroville being to promote research in order to enrich
all cultures, we hope that the cultural pavilions of all nations will serve
as national campuses closely associated with each other in a common
search for the realisation of unity in diversity, from which may emerge
anew Man with a new culture which will be integral. This in turn may
bring about a new consciousness and a new world order at the service
of the Truth.

Home universities and research centres of all nations may be able
to participate through their cultural pavilions in the programme of the
International University. We also hope that there will be, as aconsequence
of this juxtaposition and interchange of cultures, a possibility for
students and teachers to visit different countries according to their
interest for a wider knowledge and richness of experience. This may
spontaneously group all the existing institutions in a spirit of freedom
and collaboration.

p.10 (13)
It can be called a Universal Centre of Integral Education.

p.10 (14) Finance

If this centre of education can effectively serve the aspirations of
humanity for human unity and the future of Man on the basis of the
Truth, we see no reason why all men of goodwill and sincerity should
not support it and since it will ultimately help the governments and all
concerned in ensuring stability, peace and development, financial support
from the public and governmental sources can be easily envisaged.

p.10 (15)

Yes, if we are convinced that its programme can truly and
effectively answer the need of humanity for peace, unity and
development as well as for the progress towards the future.
p.11 (16)

The institution should be completely autonomous, but it can have the
relationship of collaborator with the United Nations and UNESCO as
well as with other international Specialised Agencies and organisations
which might be helpful and interested in its programme.

p.11 (17)
As far as Auroville is concerned, we envisage the entire township
as a centre of education and the programmes and activities will be

104

decided by the spontaneous needs and interests of all its participants in
consonance with the aims of the township as laid down in its charter.
Each national pavilion will decide its own programme and procedure
of governance also in accordance with the fundamental aim of the
township.

The only condition for the students and the teachers and all other
participants in order to belong to this centre of education will be that
they are absolutely sincere seekers of the Truth and have the will to
collaborate in the realisation of its aims and objectives on the basis of
the Truth.

All must serve each other in a spirit of friendship, understanding
and cooperation. Everything must be arranged in a spirit of complete
freedom, flexibility, sincerity, goodwill and cooperation according to
the spontaneous needs of the situation.

Students and teachers alike can decide freely what programmes and
activities are pertinent to their life and interests in view of the larger
aim of the University for Human Unity to which the international
community of Auroville is also dedicated.

Leaders and directors will emerge on the basis of their own interests
and essential merits rather than be nominated on the basis of their
external and apparent qualifications. The relationship among all will be
that of friends and collaborators.

p.11 (18)

There must be flexibility in all matters to allow different possibilities
which may offer themselves for a free and harmonious growth and the
success of the basic objectives in the light of the Truth.” 250-7

International Cultural Pavilions: the 1974 Resolution

[After the Mother left Her physical body, Kailas continued her work for
Auroville. She prepared a resolution for Auroville’s Cultural Pavilions,
outlining in a booklet the concept in the light of Sri Aurobindo’s and
the Mother’s vision. Published by Auropress, one thousand copies were
sent to the Indian National Commission for UNESCO to be dispatched
to Paris. ]

105

“There”, writes Kailas, “they were to be distributed to the Member-
States and to the National Commissions for UNESCO, to the members of
the Executive Board of UNESCO, to the office of the Director-General,
to the Departments of Cultural Affairs and the Non-Governmental
Organisations.” She continues, “I had also sent a copy of this brochure
to Matagiri in New York State with a letter explaining to them that it
had gone to UNESCO with a resolution to be forwarded by the Indian
Government. I hoped that the needful would be done for this project
though I was not able to go due to financial restraints. They understood
my difficulty and they approached Mrs. Montgomery with my brochure,
asking if there was any possibility of supporting my going to Paris. She
read my brochure and was very enthusiastic about it. She sent me a
telegram on the 1** of November, 1974: “Foundation has bought your
ticket Madras—Paris. Get it from Air India Madras. Write me from Paris
immediately. Your brochure brilliant. Love, Eleanore.””’ However, the
ticket was only one-way, whereas if one wanted to return the Indian
government generally requested a two-way ticket. Trusting the Mother,
Kailas wrote, “I told them that my return ticket would be arranged in
Paris. They did not ask any more questions.”

When Kailas finally arrived in Paris, the General Conference of
UNESCO had begun almost two weeks earlier. Mr. Pouschpa Dass (the
UNESCO Director of the Department of Culture) knew nothing about
the Auroville resolution and, upon enquiry, discovered that this “had
gone to the Information Committee instead of coming to the Cultural
Committee. And when it was discussed there, nobody from our Indian
Delegation was present to answer the doubts expressed by the Swiss
Delegation concerning Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy and the viability of
the Auroville project” Kailas noted. ““‘So, I approached G. Parthasarthy,
the head of our Delegation and a member of the Executive Board of
UNESCO and asked him why nobody from the Delegation was present
in the meeting when our resolution was presented. He said that it was
very sad and he would enquire. I told him that a proper and befitting
reply concerning Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy must be given. He said:
“Of course!” Parthasarthy then rebuked the members of the Cultural
Committee and the next day the mistake was corrected.

Kailas continues, “I took an appointment with the Swiss Delegate and
asked him on what basis had he gathered his impression to make such

106

a statement of doubts about the philosophy of Sri Aurobindo and an
allegation about Auroville. He replied that generally it was from the
mass media. I asked him whether he always trusted the mass media. He
replied that it was not always credible. Then, I asked him: “Why did you
then make sucha statement?” He said: “I was advised by my government
to make it.” I said: “There is an important difference between your
government and Auroville. In Auroville one is expected to work on the
basis of the truth.” Then, we talked about Sri Aurobindo’s philosophy
based on His own spiritual experience and about the project of Auroville,
the difficulties of human nature to be changed and the process of self-
introspection, the importance of cultural pavilions of all nations and the
right conditions for the project to succeed. He said: “I understand.” I
asked him: “Now that you understand, would you withdraw your adverse
remarks or at least let your government know the truth, too? He said:
“Certainly. I am very pleased and apologise for my unjustified remarks.”

The final result was that the General Conference of UNESCO
unanimously passed the following resolution on the Auroville
International Cultural Pavilions, stating:

“Recalling the three Unesco resolutions (4.36, 4.02 and 3.32.1)
on Auroville, unanimously adopted by the fourteenth, fifteenth and
sixteenth sessions of the General Conference,

Noting the invitation of the Government of India to Member States
and the international non-governmental organizations for participation
in the development of Auroville as an international cultural township
designed to bring together the values of different cultures and civilizations
in a harmonious environment with integrated living standards which
correspond to man’s physical and spiritual needs, (resolution 4.131),

Considering the confidence placed by the General Conference
that Auroville with its many interrelated sub-projects will add a new
dimension to Unesco’s activities for the promotion of international
cooperation and understanding and appreciation of cultural and human
values, (resolution 4.131),

Considering also that this project of Auroville has been unanimously
commended by the General Conference to all those interested in
Unesco’s ideals, (resolution 4.36).

Appreciating the researches and the gradual all-round progress
made by in education, agriculture, health, science, ecology, Auroville

107

architecture, arts and human sciences,

Reaffirming that the realisation of Auroville will help humanity
towards the fulfillment of its aspiration for unity in diversity, peace and
an integrated development on the material and spiritual planes,

Convinced that the project of Permanent Cultural Pavilions of all
Nations in Auroville will be a practical and comprehensive means of
implementing the Unesco’s Declaration of the Principles of International
cooperation and of achieving its objectives,

Noting that the building of the cultural pavilions of India has already
commenced,

Urges all Member States, non-governmental organisations and all
concerned to collaborate in establishing their national pavilion by
February 1978, to mark the tenth Anniversary of Auroville, and to that
effect:

Requests the Director-General to take whatever steps are necessary
for the realisation of this significant sub-project of Auroville and to report
on the progress made at the next session of the General Conference.”

Kailas writes, “I approached G. Parthasarthy to discuss with him
further steps to implement the resolution. He invited me to Delhi
and said that there we would talk with different ministries and the
National Commission for UNESCO and ask them to send letters to the
member-states of UNESCO and national commissions for UNESCO,
seeking their collaboration in our project and also write to the cultural
departments of our embassies to follow it up. ... I also saw two of the
Executive Board members from the USA and from Great Britain with
Mr. Parthasarthy. They felt that our concept of Auroville was unique and
with the establishment of cultural pavilions on the lines suggested in the
brochure, it would achieve an enormous significance. They expressed
their support and all good wishes for its success.”

Kailas also contacted Mr. Dayal, the representative in charge of the
permanent delegation of India to UNESCO in Paris, who replied that he
would personally accompany her to meet “with the various important
delegations, representative of all the continents so that I could explain
to them our project and solicit their participation.” As Kailas observed,

“In our meetings, I explained the importance of this project since each
country had to study the genius of their culture and to manifest it freely.

108

This went on very well. They were all impressed by our concept and
said that they were in favour of our project especially since it was on a
permanent basis and the aim put forward was commendable.”

As the new Director-General of UNESCO, Mr. Amadou-Mahtar
M’Bow, was out of town, Kailas left for him, with a note, two
volumes by Sri Aurobindo, “L’Idéal de |’?Unité Humaine” and “Le
Cycle Humain”. In his acknowledgment letter he thanked her “for this
friendly gift which has given me much pleasure.” She also met with
Mr. Fobes, the new Deputy Director-General of UNESCO, who had
replaced Dr. Adiseshiah. He made a point of canceling his luncheon
engagement so that, instead of a few minutes, Kailas had a full hour,
she wrote, “to talk about the project dear to my heart. He was very
pleased. He said that if we presented our reports on various activities
of Auroville, he would consider their inclusion in UNESCO’s Courier,
and could also send representatives to discuss the area and extent of the
possibility of UNESCO’s collaboration in our project. I warned him that
it should be without any unnecessary interference. He agreed to this.
Then, I contacted the head of the department of the Non-Governmental
Organisations. He too promised to send the resolution with our brochure
to all the NGOs and invite them to consider participation in the building
of their national pavilions. I also approached various departments of
UNESCO to acquaint them with the various projects of Auroville and
to invite their collaboration.”

In April Roger Anger, just back in France from Pondicherry, met with
Kailas and was happy to hear about the astounding amount of work
she had done. He expressed concern, however, about the serious rift
taking place between the Sri Aurobindo Society and those living in
Auroville. Some time later Kailas met Dr. Adiseshiah, temporarily in
Paris because of a UNESCO meeting. The latter arranged for a meeting
with Pouschpa Dass, who had asked to be kept informed in order to help
the project moving forward.

Invited to go to Great Britain for a few days, with all expenses paid by
Auroville International, Kailas took the opportunity to meet with the
British National Commission for UNESCO and the British Council of
Cultural Relations. She commened, “They were greatly appreciative of
the project but said that their genius was commercial and not spiritual.

109

I said commerce is not excluded from spirituality, provided it was done
with honesty and served the spiritual purpose.

Back in Paris, Kailas wrote to Navajata that she had many opportunities
“to discuss Auroville and our project of cultural pavilions with different
departments of UNESCO, national delegations and individuals”. She
suggested that he should “request the Indian Government to write
letters to the member-states of UNESCO and at the same time to write
to the Department of Cultural Relations in our embassies abroad to get
in touch with them as well as with our Auroville Associations abroad”,
expressing her hope that the foundation of some of the national
pavilions be laid on the occasion of the Mother’s Birth Centenary. She
also observed that the Auroville associations in Paris and England had
responded well, as did her contacts with devotees in Matagiri and with
Mrs. Montgomery, in the USA. Having felt that she had done all that
she could, she urged Navajata to send her a return ticket to India.

On her way back Kailas halted in the Netherlands where, she explained,
“T addressed a meeting in Amsterdam on Sri Aurobindo, The Mother
and Auroville. Also, I expounded the subject of human unity in Their
light at the centre in Belgium, under the charge of Willy Perizonius.
They were greatly impressed and asked many questions. Willy was so
enthusiastic that he proposed to sponsor my trip for an international
meeting on Habitat.”

But back in Pondy, Kailas was abruptly made to realize that the separation
between Auroville and the Sri Aurobindo Society was unavoidable.
This was the end of her dream of “seeing the foundation stone laid of
some of the cultural pavilions for The Mother’s Centenary”.

110

KAILAS’ SECRETARIAT WORK:
FACSIMILES OF THE MOTHER’S MESSAGES

“This seems correct. At any rate you can go to meet him [Dr. M.
Adiseshiah, Deputy Director General of UNESCO] and see what
happens. With love and blessings” 30, Fl

“You are right — the time for running about is over for you and it is
much better that you should remain here quietly. You can use my
letter as areply. With my love and blessings” 38, F2

[Two telegrams: ] “Secretary-in-charge, UNESCO section”, and “Mother
approves your contacting Ford Foundation” 106, F3 & 4

“If you come with him [Dr. M. Adiseshiah] this morning at 11
o’clock, I shall see you” 108, F5

“Your feeling is right. If you can meet him [Dr M.
Adiseshiah] in Madras, go with my help and _ blessings,
and do what you want to do. With love” 123, F6

“You must go to Delhi only if you feel that you can do the
work effectively and usefully. In any case, my blessings are
with you” 126, F7

“Do not worry. After all it is the Supreme Lord who organises
everything in you and in the others — and each one plays his role,
convinced that it is the only Truth, while all are true in the Supreme.
With love and blessings” 145, F8

“Each one is meant to represent one aspect of the Truth which
realises itself by the perfect union of all the aspects. But each
individual has the possibility of becoming, by a conscious union
with the Supreme, conscious of His Consciousness, and thus to
know at once the part he has to play and the whole of the play.
This is the supreme realisation. Blessings” 146, F9

111

To Kailas asking “Can someone else like Jullie Medlock, Jay Smith
or Anjani Dayanand take over? Or would my withdrawal affect
Your work through Sat? [Dr. M. Adiseshiah]”, the Mother asked
the attendant to underline the three names and write an emphatic
Non Non and added: “It is better if she continues” 162, F10

“I do not know who told you that — but there is a misunderstanding
somewhere because to hand over the management of Auroville to
any country or any group however big it may be is an absolute
impossibility. If it has been at all taken, itis without my knowledge
— because I say to it an emphatic NO.” 170, F1l

“Your only preoccupation must be to be and to do only
what the Divine wants you to be and to do. What the others
think of you has absolutely no importance. With love and

blessings” 171, F12
“C’est trés, tres bien” (It is very, very good) 241, F13
“Kailas, it can be sent. Blessings” 241, F14

“Yes, do the work. It is all right. Do it with care and confidence, it will
be whatit has to be. Love and blessings” 272, F15

“Sri Aurobindo belongs to the future and all these details of the
past are without interest & I have no time to do it” 274, F16

[Sri Aurobindo’s Birthday Centenary - Message for UNESCO: ]

“An Avatar is not a human being although he_ has
accepted to use a human body” 278, F17

“Keep quiet and let him [Dr M. Adiseshiah] do what he
thinks best. Blessings” 286, F18&

“Let Sat [Dr. M. Adiseshiah] do as he feels — it is the best.
With love and blessings” 383, F19

112

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A SPECIAL INTERLOCUTOR FROM UNESCO

In UNESCO, no one stood for Auroville more poignantly, more valiantly
than Dr. M. Adiseshiah, Deputy Director General. Kailas wrote:

“Dr. Adiseshiah was invited from the very inception of UNESCO in
1946 by Julian Huxley, the first Director-General of UNESCO. He was
a true karmayogi and had a distinguished career of service to the best of
his abilities since he joined UNESCO till he retired in 1970.

He sincerely believed in the vision of the Mother for Auroville,
founded on the basis of Sri Aurobindo’s revelation of a glorious future
of man & the world.

He began endorsing and promoting the project of Auroville by
sending New Year greeting cards printed with the spiral nebula of the
conceptual design of the proposed township of Auroville to all his
friends in the international community of UNESCO.”!

Kailas’ autobiography also highlights the guru-disciple relationship.
Beginning in 1965 and prior to any UNESCO involvement, as in the
case of the Indo-Pakistani war, Kailas had a life-long exchange of letters
with Dr. Adiseshiah, always submitting to the Mother for advice their
correspondence, deeply inspiring both at the official and the personal
level. One example was their protracted discussion on Mahatma
Gandhi, about which the Mother commented:

“In the effort of humanity to reach the Truth and manifest it, all
those who made a discovery however small it may be, have a place,
and Gandhi is one of them. But the great mistake has always been
to oppose these partial discoveries instead of unifying them in a
supreme harmony. That is why humanity is still groping in the dark.

Sri Aurobindo has come to reveal that this supreme harmony exists
and to show us the way to discover it.

Kailas, you can include the above in your answer.
Blessings.” 261-2, Fl

1 “Centenary celebrations of the late Dr. M. S. Adiseshiah, responsible for the
promotion and the development of Auroville in the International Arena”, published in
the Sri Aurobindo Ashram magazine Mother India.

122

The Mother’s written observations on papers such as these, which lie
outside any Auroville- UNESCO interaction, show the loving interest,
independent from the key-posts Dr. Adiseshiah occupied, which the
Mother bestowed upon this true seeker, a Brahmin with a path of his
own who had turned into a channel of her force. Having synthesized
the best that India and the West had achieved, Dr. Adiseshiah — Sat, as
the Mother and Kailas called him — could not be content with just some
external formulation regarding an ideal city and society in the making;
in answer to his repeated questioning, Kailas wrote at last a detailed
explanation, summarizing the path of Integral Yoga.

Kailas kept updating the Mother even after Sat resigned from UNESCO,
at the end of 1970; becoming fully involved, instead, in the Madras
Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), mainly dedicated to socio-
economic research, which he had founded. Kailas participated on a
regular basis in the Institute’s monthly seminars, with the Mother’s
approval. Whenever he came to Pondicherry, she took him to the
Mother.

Since the contents concern Kailas’ personal life and sadhana, in the
present book I have omitted the texts regarding the special affinity
binding our two main protagonists, though much relevant to the
understanding of Integral Yoga, to focus instead on Kailas’ work
as the “Secretary-in-charge, UNESCO section” appointed by the
Mother. Nevertheless I reproduce below some handwritten messages
by the Mother highlighting the care by which she followed the special
relationship Kailas had with this eminent personality. The facsimiles of
the Mother’s messages are reproduced at the end.

From the subchapter Sri Aurobindo’s guidance on human relationship,
pp. 174-80:

“Why interruption? Is it S. who stopped seeing or writing to you,
or you? I do not understand. If you wrote this to me I missed your
letter and ask for an explanation.

Where is Sat? Are you no more writing to him? Has he
stopped writing to you? I would like to know. Love and
blessings.” 178, F2 & 3

“If you feel like writing to Sat for the work you can do so even if he
does not answer. That is all I can tell you — but my love and blessings

123

are with you and will help you to do the needful.” 179, F4
From the subchapter The Mother’s Guidance: Sat and I, pp. 187-212:

“Send your letters through Francoise who will read them
to me and I shall answer. Love and _ blessings.” 189, F5

“Kailas, Do not worry. Keep quiet and calm —- It is
the only way to know the Truth and to do the proper
thing. With love and blessings.” 193, F6

“J received your offering and accepted it. But I am sending back the
letters to you as I have no place to keep them.

There is a stage for human beings when they need to love the
Divine through a human being because they are not ready for a
direct relation with the Divine. But when the body consciousness
progresses and it becomes possible for the cells to enter in constant
relation with the Divine without needing the visible presence of
another person, the love for another person becomes superfluous
and may stop. Keep these letters as a souvenir of the past, if you
wish so — but let your love be exclusively for the Divine.

Blessings” 193-4, F7&8&

“Keep your mind silent and quiet.

Aspire and wait for the command and you will know what you have
to do.

Meanwhile remain here peacefully.
If something is to be done, I shall let you know.
With love and blessings.” 194, F9

“My love is always with you and_ the Grace will fulfill your
prayer. I shall call you as soon as it is materially possible.

Blessings.” 196, F10

“Your position is quite all right. I have no objection at all at your
calling Sat here.

With my love and blessings.” 200, F11
124

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MAN IN ALL HIS GLORY, IN HIS DIVINITY,
IN HIS UNFATHOMABLE DEPTHS'!

...We have tried in UNESCO, and the UNESCO world, which represents
the plusses and the minuses of humanity, which represents the world as
it is and not the world as it can be or should be, we have tried every way
and we have failed.

And so now we turn to Auroville, and to its foundation, the firm
foundation on which its human unity, its universal harmony, is to be
built. That foundation is Man, Man in all his glory, in his divinity, in
his unfathomable depths which he can reach, and which Auroville will
make it possible for man from everywhere to achieve.

It is not surprising therefore that UNESCO has embraced Auroville
as a programme which embodies its major and fundamental purposes.
The fifteenth General Conference of UNESCO attended by its 125
member-states, which ended this month and from which I am coming
almost directly to you, adopted unanimously the resolution, making
Auroville the concern of every one of the member-states of the world
and the responsibility of every man, woman and child in these member
countries.

And so, on behalf of UNESCO, on behalf of all of you present here,
and not present here, I hail Auroville, its conception and realisation
as a hope for all of us, and particularly for our children, for our youth,
who are disillusioned with the world that we have built for them, and
who will find in Auroville as they found at the time of its foundation
ceremony, a living symbol, inspiring them to live the life to which they
are called. ...

DR. M. ADISESHIAH
Deputy Director-General of UNESCO

1 Excerpt from the speech delivered on December 28, 1968 at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram
Theatre. The symposium on Auroville was organised by All India Radio.

132

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Unesc o’s General Conference beginsits session on October17 this year. At its
last session in 1970 it invited all Unesco memberstates and non-govemmental
organizations to participate in this years centenary of the birth of Si
Aurobindo, the great Indian spiritual leader and philosopher. An exhibition
on Sn Aurobindo’s life and work will be held at Unesco headquarters in Paris
from October 16 to 26. Special ceremonies have taken place and will take
place at Pondicheny, south of Madrason the east coast of India and on the
nearby site of Auroville, the intemational city named after Aurobindo. In this
issue published in the intemational spirit of Unesco’s General Conference we
present articles on the life and teaching of Si Aurobindo...

133

This model of Auroville, the cultural township ... a few miles north of
Pondicheny in India, showsthe city of global unity spread out like a giant
nebula with the golden sphere or “Matrimandir’ as its focal point. With
its four zones—residential, industrial, cultural and intemational—Auroville
will eventually cover an area of 15 square miles with a population not
exceeding 50,000. In the cultural zone academies of arts and sciences will
welcome artistsand scientistsfrom all parts of the word. In the intemational
zone pavilions of all nations will serve as embassies of the culture, art and
handicrafts of each country. The city’s nebularshaped layout allows for
the integration of the different zones. The foundation stone of Auroville
waSlaid on February 28, 1968, and the city isexpected to take 20 yearsto
complete. Unesco has invited its member states and non-govemmental
organizations to participate in the development of Auroville as an
intemational cultural township “designed to bring together the values of
different cultures and civilizations in a harmonious environment”, and has
been lending its support to the project asa whole.

The UNESCO Courer, October 1972

134

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TMASAA MAAN eA KO

SRI AUROBINDO
IN THE PATH OF A GREAT SAGE

K. R. SRINIVASA IYENGAR, Indian educator, author and critic, has
made a special study of the life and philosophical works of Sri Aurobindo, to
whom he devoted his latest book, “Sri Aurobindo: a Biography and a History”,
published recently in two volumes at Pondicherry, India. He was formerly head
of the English Department at Andhra University (S.E. India) and its Vice-
Chancellor before his election in 1969 as Vice-President of the National Academy
of Letters in New Delbi. He has published biographies of Rabindranath Tagore,

Francois Mauriac, Shakespeare and other writers.

Was it just a quirk of fate that Sri Aurobindo, the Indian philosopher,
poet and patriot whose centenary we celebrate this year, was born 75
years to the day before India achieved independence?

Aurobindo himself regarded the fact that his 75th birthday coincided
with the proclamation of an independent India on August 15, 1947,
(our “tryst with destiny” as Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru called
it) “not as a fortuitous accident but as a sanction and seal of the Divine
Power that guides my steps”.

Third son of a surgeon, Aurobindo received an English education at
Loretto Convent School, Darjeeling, India, and St. Paul’s School,
London, before reading classics at Cambridge. Returning to India in
1893, he accepted service in the Baroda State in western India, rising
to become Vice-Principal and professor at Baroda College and later
Principal of the new National College in Calcutta.

But with the Indian sub-continent, which he saw not just as
a geographical area but as Bharati the Mother under foreign
domination, Aurobindo set little store on the easy security afforded
by his teaching career and embarked on a two-pronged programme
of revolutionary action. At first he was content to exercise from
behind the scenes a long-distance control over a secret, nationwide,
revolutionary organization that would be ready when the time came
for armed uprising. Then, in 1906, he openly entered the arena of
nationalist politics, and as de facto editor of the Calcutta daily

135

newspaper “Bande Mataram” he preached the nationalist cause with
missionary fervour.

Already Sri Aurobindo’s “Bhavani Mandir’, which in the eyes
of the alien bureaucracy was an incendiary pamphlet, was in secret
circulation among young revolutionaries. Now his open espousal of
extremist nationalism made him the most dangerous man in India.
Following the killing of the Pringle-Kennedy ladies at Muzzaferpore
by tworevolutionary hotheads, Sri Aurobindo was arrested and placed
in solitary confinement in the Alipur jail on charges of conspiracy.

After a prolonged trial he was acquitted and released in May
1909. But during his time in prison Sri Aurobindo underwent a
mystic experience which decided him to turn his back on politics
and retire to the French setthkement at Pondicherry in southern
India for the undisturbed pursuit of Yoga and _ spirituality.

In his “Cave of Tapasya” at Pondicherry, he set about working out
the meaning of the spiritual insights he had received while in jail.
In collaboration with a French woman, Madame Mira Richard, who
was to become known as “The Mother”, he launched the monthly
philosophical journal “Arya” and founded the famous Ashram.

Although Madame Richard had _ to return to France with the
outbreak of the First World War, Aurobindo kept the journal going
until 1921, publishing in it in serial form a number of philosophical
treatises such as “The Life Divine”, “The Human Cycle”, “The
Ideal of Human Unity”, “The Synthesis of Yoga”, “The Secret of the
Veda”, “Essays on the Gita’’, “Foundations of Indian Culture” and
“The Future Poetry”.

Sri Aurobindo’s achievement as a lyricist, dramatist and epic poet
must rank him among the great creative writers of our time. Yet it is
not merely as a writer and poet, but as a thinker and prophet that Sri
Aurobindo has made his unique impact upon our age.

In his Independence Day message of August 15, 1947, Sri Aurobindo
referred to five world movements with which he had involved
himself and whose fulfilment he hoped for — a free and united India,
a resurgent Asia, an emerging world union, the overflow of India’s
spirituality into Europe and America, and, finally, “a step in evolution

136

which would raise man to a higher and larger consciousness”. The
last was the most important and was the theme of “The Life Divine”,
“The Human Cycle” and “The Ideal of Human Unity”.

Sri Aurobindo’s diagnosis of the present human predicament is that,
while man’s mastery over the outside world has been growing at an
accelerated pace, his inner development seems to have halted long
ago. Our environment is changing fast, but the inner climate has
remained the same. So far only the first three stages of evolution
have emerged, the development from “matter” to “life” and from
“life” to “mind”; but the time has come for the step forward to the
“supermind” and the “‘divinisation”’ of man and the universe.

Sri Aurobindo died on December 5, 1950, but his work has been
continued by “The Mother”. It was in furtherance of his vision of
the future that “Auroville’’, the international “City of Dawn’, was
inaugurated in February 1968.

Though nearly twenty-two years have passed since the death of Sri
Aurobindo, his influence is still keenly felt, particularly so in his
centenary year. He was cast in the hallowed mould of India’s great
sages and Rishis, and it was his destiny to participate in great world
movements and help hasten their fulfilment. He saw India bound
and willed her free; he saw that man was a creature of infinity in his
aspirations, but a maimed thing in reality because of the limitations of
egoistic desire, inbuilt incapacity and the certainty of death.

The Ashram at Pondicherry and Auroville represent the dynamic
phase of Sri Aurobindo’s spiritual philosophy. They are but mini-
worlds, spiritual pilot projects in which several hundred men, women
and children drawn from most of the nationalities of the world are
laying the foundations of the “Deva Sangha” (the Community of
Gods) that Sri Aurobindo envisaged.

The Ashram and Auroville are still but the beginning of beginnings;

no more than hints and guesses, sketches and opening bars of music.

They are, if you will, like promissory notes; but the seal and the
signature are Sri Aurobindo’s.

K. R. SRINIVASA TYENGAR

The UNESCO Courier, October 1972

137

THE IDEAL OF HUMAN UNITY

Poet, critic, scholar and humanist, Sri Aurobindo was a new type of thinker
whom the London “Times Literary Supplement” has described as “one who
combines in his vision the alacrity of the West with the iumination of the
East.” In 1914 he launched a monthly philosophical journal, “Arya” in
which he expressed his vision of man and history, his destiny, and the progress
of human society towards unity and harmony. These treatises, since published
as books, were followed by other major works from the pen of Sri_Aurobindo,
including the epic “Savitri”, a spiritual poem of 23,000 lines, and “Mind
of Light’. The following quotations are from “The Ideal of Human Unity”,
which first appeared in “Arya” in serial form between 1915 and 1918. This
treatise and two other works — “The Human Cycle” and ‘War and Self
Determination” — were recently published under the general title, “Social
and Political Thought”, as volume 15 in the Sri_ Aurobindo Birth Centenary
Library by the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.

Today the ideal of human unity is more or less making its way to the
front of our consciousness. The ideal... must certainly be attempted,
and is likely to figure largely among the determining forces of the
future; for the intellectual and material circumstances of the age have
prepared and almost imposed it...

The State and the individual

We must note one fact in connexion with the claim of the State to suppress
the individual in its own interest: that it is quite immaterial to the
principle what form the State may assume. The tyranny of the absolute
king over all and the tyranny of the majority over the individual... are
forms of one and the same tendency. Each when it declares itself to be
the State with its absolute “L’Etat, c’est moi,” is speaking a profound
truth even while it bases that truth upon a falsehood. The truth is
that each really is the self-expression of the State in its characteristic
attempt to subordinate to itself the free will, the free action, the
power, dignity and self-assertion of the individuals constituting it. The
falsehood lies in the underlying idea that the State is something greater
than the individuals constituting it and can with impunity for itself and

138

to the highest hope of humanity arrogate this oppressive supremacy.

National conscience and individual liberty

A national culture, a national religion, a national education may still
be useful things provided they do not interfere with the growth of
human solidarity on the one side and individual freedom of thought
and conscience and development on the other.

Human aggregation and living organisms

The administrative, political, economic organization of mankind
in aggregates of smaller or greater size is a work which belongs
at its basis to the same order of phenomena as the creation of vital
organisms in physical Nature. It uses, that is to say, primarily external
and physical methods governed by the principles of physical life-
energy intent on the creation of living forms.

Liberty and justice

Liberty is insufficient, justice also is necessary and becomes a pressing
demand; the cry for equality arises. Certainly, absolute equality is
non-existent in this world; but the word was aimed against the unjust
and unnecessary inequalities of the old social order. Under a just
social order, there must be an equal opportunity, an equal training for
all to develop their faculties and to use them.

The plague of national egoism

War can only be abolished if national armies are abolished and even
then with difficulty, by the development of some other machinery
which humanity does not yet know how to form or, even if formed,
will not for some time be able or willing perfectly to utilize. And
there is no chance of national armies being abolished; for each
nation distrusts all the others too much, has too many ambitions
and hungers, needs to remain armed, if for nothing else, to guard its
markets and keep down its dominions, colonies, subject peoples.

Progress and liberty

All unnecessary restriction of the few common liberties man has

139

been able to organize for himself becomes a step backward whatever
immediate gain it may bring; and every organization of oppression or
repression beyond what the imperfect conditions of human nature and
society render inevitable, becomes, no matter where or by whom it is
practised, a blow to the progress of the whole race.

Diversity and unity

Freedom is as necessary to life as law and regime: diversity is as
necessary as unity to our true completeness. Existence is only one in
its essence and totality; in its play it is necessarily multiform. Absolute
uniformity would mean the cessation of life, while on the other hand,
the vigour of the pulse of life may be measured by the richness of
the diversities which it creates. At the same time, while diversity is
essential for power and fruitfulness of life, unity is necessary for its
order, arrangement and stability.

The inner liberty

Nature does not manufacture, does not impose a pattern or a rule from
outside; she impels life to grow from within and to assert its own
natural law and development modified only by its commerce with its
environment. All liberty, individual, national, religious, social, ethical,
takes its ground upon this fundamental principle of our existence.

Democracy

Democracy is by no means a sure preservative of liberty; on-the
contrary, we see today the democratic system of government march
steadily towards such an organized annihilation of individual liberty as
could not have been dreamed of in the old aristocratic and monarchical
systems. It may be that from the more violent and brutal forms of
despotic oppression, which were associated with those systems,
democracy has indeed delivered those nations which have been
fortunate enough to achieve liberal forms of government, and that is
no doubt a great gain. It revives now only in periods of revolution
and of excitement, often in the forms of mob tyranny or a savage
revolutionary or reactionary repression. But there is a deprivation
of liberty which is more respectable in appearance, more subtle and
systematized, more mild in its method because it has a greater force at

140

its back, but for that very reason more effective and pervading.

Language and tongues

A common language makes for unity and therefore it might be said that
the unity of the human race demands unity of language; the advantages
of diversity must be foregone for this greater good, however serious
the temporary sacrifice. But... language is the sign of the cultural life
of a people, the index of its soul in thought and mind that stands behind
and enriches its soul in action. Therefore, it is here that the phenomena
and utilities of diversity may be most readily seized more than in mere
outward things. ... Diversity of language is worth keeping because
diversity of cultures and differentiation of soul-groups are worth
keeping and because without that diversity life cannot have full play;
for in its absence there is a danger, almost an inevitability of decline
and stagnation.

The inner and the outer

In laying stress on culture, on the things of the mind and the spirit,
there need be no intention of undervaluing the outward material side
of life: it is not at all my purpose to belittle that to which Nature
always attaches so insistent an importance. On the contrary, the inner
and the outer depend upon each other. ... The peace, well-being and
settled order of the human world is a thing eminently to be desired
as a basis for a great world-culture in which all humanity must be
united; but neither of these unities, the outward or inward, ought to
be devoid of an element even more important than peace, order and
well-being—freedom and vigour of life, which can only be assured
by variation and by the freedom of the group and of the individual.

The ultimate aim: the spirit

A spiritual religion of humanity is the hope of the future. By
this is not meant what is ordinarily called a universal religion,
a system, a thing of creed and intellectual belief and dogma and
outward rite. Mankind has tried unity by that means; it has failed
and deserved to fail, because there can be no universal religious
system, one in mental creed and vital form. The inner spirit is indeed
one, but more than any other the spiritual life insists on freedom

141

and variation in its self-expression and means of development.
A religion of humanity means the growing realization that there is a
secret Spirit, a divine Reality, in which we are all one, that humanity
is its highest present vehicle on earth, that the human race and the
human being are the means by which it will progressively reveal itself
here. It implies a growing attempt to live out this knowledge and
bring about a kingdom of this divine Spirit upon earth. By its growth
within us oneness with our fellow-men will become the leading
principle of all our life, not merely a principle of co-operation, but
a deeper brotherhood, a real and an inner sense of unity and equality
and a common life.
*

The idea of a world-empire imposed by sheer force is in direct
opposition, as we have seen, to the new conditions which the
progressive nature of things has introduced into the modern world.

*

Behind the apparent changes of the most radical revolutions we see
this unavoidable principle of continuity surviving in the heart of the

new order.
*

The present arrangement of the world has been worked out by
economic forces, by political diplomacies, treaties and purchases

and by military violence without regard to any moral principle or any
general rule of the good of mankind.

*
The free individual is the conscious progressive: it is only when he is

able to impart his own creative and mobile consciousness to the mass
that a progressive society becomes possible.

SRI AUROBINDO

Social and Political Thought
Excerpts published in The UNESCO Courier, October 1972

142

THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY

A religion of humanity may be either an intellectual and sentimental
ideal, a living dogma with intellectual, psychological and practical
effects, or else a spiritual aspiration and rule of living, partly the sign,
partly the cause of a change of soul in humanity. The intellectual
religion of humanity already to a certain extent exists, partly as
a conscious creed in the minds of a few, partly as a potent shadow
in the consciousness of the race. It is the shadow of a spirit that is
yet unborn, but is preparing for its birth. This material world of
ours, besides its fully embodied things of the present, is peopled
by such powerful shadows, ghosts of things dead and the spirit of
things yet unborn. The ghosts of things dead are very troublesome
actualities and they now abound, ghosts of dead religions, dead arts,
dead moralities, dead political theories, which still claim either to
keep their rotting bodies or to animate partly the existing body of
things. Repeating obstinately their sacred formulas of the past, they
hypnotise backward-looking minds and daunt even the progressive
portion of humanity. But there are too those unborn spirits which are
still unable to take a definite body, but are already mind-born and
exist as influences of which the human mind is aware and to which
it now responds in a desultory and confused fashion. The religion of
humanity was mind-born in the eighteenth century, the manasa putra'
of the rationalist thinkers who brought it forward as a substitute for
the formal spiritualism of ecclesiastical Christianity. It tried to give
itself a body in Positivism, which was an attempt to formulate the
dogmas of this religion, but on too heavily and severely rationalistic a
basis for acceptance even by an Age of Reason. Humanitarianism has
been its most prominent emotional result. Philanthropy, social service
and other kindred activities have been its outward expression of good
works. Democracy, socialism, pacificism are to a great extent its by-
products or at least owe much of their vigour to its inner presence.

1 Mind-born child, an idea and expression of Indian Puranic cosmology.

143

The fundamental idea is that mankind is the godhead to be worshipped
and served by man and that the respect, the service, the progress of
the human being and human life are the chief duty and the chief aim
of the human spirit. No other idol, neither the nation, the State, the
family nor anything else ought to take its place; they are only worthy
of respect so far as they are images of the human spirit and enshrine
its presence and aid its self-manifestation. But where the cult of
these idols seeks to usurp the place of the spirit and makes demands
inconsistent with its service, they should be put aside. No injunctions
of old creeds, religious, political, social or cultural, are valid when
they go against its claims. Science even, though it is one of the
chief modern idols, must not be allowed to make claims contrary to
its ethical temperament and aim, for science is only valuable in so
far as it helps and serves by knowledge and progress the religion of
humanity. War, capital punishment, the taking of human life, cruelty
of all kinds whether committed by the individual, the State or society,
not only physical cruelty, but moral cruelty, the degradation of any
human being or any class of human beings under whatever specious
plea or in whatever interest, the oppression and exploitation of man
by man, of class by class, of nation by nation and all those habits of
life and institutions of society of a similar kind which religion and
ethics formerly tolerated or even favoured in practice, whatever they
might do in their ideal rule or creed, are crimes against the religion
of humanity, abominable to its ethical mind, forbidden by its primary
tenets, to be fought against always, in no degree to be tolerated. Man
must be sacred to man regardless of all distinctions of race, creed,
colour, nationality, status, political or social advancement. The body
of man is to be respected, made immune from violence and outrage,
fortified by science against disease and preventable death. The life of
man is to be held sacred, preserved, strengthened, ennobled, uplifted.
The heart of man is to be held sacred also, given scope, protected from
violation, from suppression, from mechanisation, freed from belittling
influences. The mind of man is to be released from all bonds, allowed
freedom and range and opportunity, given all its means of self-
training and self-development and organised in the play of its powers
for the service of humanity. And all this too is not to be held as an
abstract or pious sentiment, but given full and practical recognition in

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the persons of men and nations and mankind. This, speaking largely,
is the idea and spirit of the intellectual religion of humanity.

... Itaccomplished rapidly many things which orthodox religion failed
to do effectively, largely because it acted as a constant intellectual
and critical solvent, an unsparing assailant of the thing that is and an
unflinching champion of the thing to be, faithful always to the future,
while orthodox religion allied itself with the powers of the present,
even of the past, bound itself by its pact with them and could act only
at best as a moderating but not as a reforming force. Moreover, this
religion has faith in humanity and its earthly future and can therefore
aid its earthly progress, while the orthodox religions looked with eyes
of pious sorrow and gloom on the earthly life of man and were very
ready to bid him bear peacefully and contentedly, even to welcome its
crudities, cruelties, oppressions, tribulations as a means for learning
to appreciate and for earning the better life which will be given us
hereafter. Faith, even an intellectual faith, must always be a worker
of miracles, and this religion of humanity, even without taking bodily
shape or a compelling form or a visible means of self-effectuation,
was yet able to effect comparatively much of what it set out to do. It
to some degree humanised society, humanised law and punishment,
humanised the outlook of man on man, abolished legalised torture
and the cruder forms of slavery, raised those who were depressed and
fallen, gave large hopes to humanity, stimulated philanthropy and
charity and the service of mankind, encouraged everywhere the desire
of freedom, put a curb on oppression and greatly minimised its more
brutal expressions.

... It gave new conceptions of the dignity of the human being and
opened new ideas and new vistas of his education, self-development
and potentiality. It spread enlightenment; it made man feel more his
responsibility for the progress and happiness of the race; it raised the
average self-respect and capacity of mankind; it gave hope to the
serf, self-assertion to the down-trodden and made the labourer in his
manhood the potential equal of the rich and powerful. True, if we
compare what is with what should be, the actual achievement with
the ideal, all this will seem only a scanty work of preparation. But it
was a remarkable record for a century and a half or a little more and

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for an unembodied spirit which had to work through what instruments
it could find and had as yet no form, habitation or visible engine of
its own concentrated workings. But perhaps it was in this that lay its
power and advantage, since that saved it from crystallising into a form
and getting petrified or at least losing its more free and subtle action.

But still in order to accomplish all its future this idea and religion of
humanity has to make itself more explicit, insistent and categorically
imperative. For otherwise it can only work with clarity in the minds
of the few and with the mass it will be only a modifying influence,
but will not be the rule of human life. And so long as that is so, it
cannot entirely prevail over its own principal enemy. That enemy,
the enemy of all real religion, is human egoism, the egoism of the
individual, the egoism of class and nation. These it could for a time
soften, modify, force to curb their more arrogant, open and brutal
expressions, oblige to adopt better institutions, but not to give place
to the love of mankind, not to recognise a real unity between man and
man. For that essentially must be the aim of the religion of humanity,
as it must be the earthly aim of all human religion, love, mutual
recognition of human brotherhood, a living sense of human oneness
and practice of human oneness in thought, feeling and life, the ideal
which was expressed first some thousands of years ago in the ancient
Vedic hymn and must always remain the highest injunction of the
Spirit within us to human life upon earth. Till that is brought about,
the religion of humanity remains unaccomplished. With that done, the
one necessary psychological change will have been effected without
which no formal and mechanical, no political and administrative
unity can be real and secure. If it is done, that outward unification
may not even be indispensable or, if indispensable, it will come about
naturally, not, as now it seems likely to be, by catastrophic means,
but by the demand of the human mind, and will be held secure by an
essential need of our perfected and developed human nature.

But this is the question whether a purely intellectual and sentimental
religion of humanity will be sufficient to bring about so great a change
in our psychology. The weakness of the intellectual idea, even when it
supports itself by an appeal to the sentiments and emotions, is that it
does not get at the centre of man’s being. The intellect and the feelings

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are only instruments of the being and they may be the instruments of
either its lower and external form or of the inner and higher man,
servants of the ego or channels of the soul. The aim of the religion
of humanity was formulated in the eighteenth century by a sort of
primal intuition; that aim was and it is still to re-create human society
in the image of three kindred ideas, liberty, equality and fraternity.
None of these has really been won in spite of all the progress that has
been achieved. The liberty that has been so loudly proclaimed as an
essential of modern progress is an outward, mechanical and unreal
liberty. The equality that has been so much sought after and battled for
is equally an outward and mechanical and will turn out to be an unreal
equality. Fraternity is not even claimed to be a practicable principle
of the ordering of life and what is put forward as its substitute is the
outward and mechanical principle of equal association or at the best a
comradeship of labour. This is because the idea of humanity has been
obliged in an intellectual age to mask its true character of a religion
and a thing of the soul and the spirit and to appeal to the vital and
physical mind of man rather than his inner being. It has limited his
effort to the attempt to revolutionise political and social institutions
and to bring about such a modification of the ideas and sentiments
of the common mind of mankind as would make these institutions
practicable; it has worked at the machinery of human life and on the
outer mind much more than upon the soul of the race. It has laboured
to establish a political, social and legal liberty, equality and mutual
help in an equal association.

But though these aims are of great importance in their own field,
they are not the central thing; they can only be secure when founded
upon a change of the inner human nature and inner way of living;
they are themselves of importance only as means for giving a greater
scope and a better field for man’s development towards that change
and, when it is once achieved, as an outward expression of the larger
inward life. Freedom, equality, brotherhood are three godheads of the
soul; they cannot be really achieved through the external machinery
of society or by man so long as he lives only in the individual and the
communal ego. When the ego claims liberty, it arrives at competitive
individualism. When it asserts equality, it arrives first at strife, then
at an attempt to ignore the variations of Nature, and, as the sole way

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of doing that successfully, it constructs an artificial and machine-
made society. A society that pursues liberty as its ideal is unable to
achieve equality; a society that aims at equality will be obliged to
sacrifice liberty. For the ego to speak of fraternity is for it to speak
of something contrary to its nature. All that it knows is association
for the pursuit of common egoistic ends and the utmost that it can
arrive at is a closer organisation for the equal distribution of labour,
production, consumption and enjoyment.

Yet is brotherhood the real key to the triple gospel of the idea of
humanity. The union of liberty and equality can only be achieved
by the power of human brotherhood and it cannot be founded on
anything else. But brotherhood exists only in the soul and by the
soul; it can exist by nothing else. For this brotherhood is not a matter
either of physical kinship or of vital association or of intellectual
agreement. When the soul claims freedom, it is the freedom of its
self-development, the self-development of the divine in man in all
his being. When it claims equality, what it is claiming is that freedom
equally for all and the recognition of the same soul, the same godhead
in all human beings. When it strives for brotherhood, it is founding
that equal freedom of self-development on a common aim, a common
life, a unity of mind and feeling founded upon the recognition of
this inner spiritual unity. These three things are in fact the nature of
the soul; for freedom, equality, unity are the eternal attributes of the
Spirit. It is the practical recognition of this truth, it is the awakening
of the soul in man and the attempt to get him to live from his soul and
not from his ego which is the inner meaning of religion, and it is that
to which the religion of humanity also must arrive before it can fulfil
itself in the life of the race.

In other words, — and this is the conclusion at which we arrive, —
while it is possible to construct a precarious and quite mechanical
unity by political and administrative means, the uniy of the human
race, even if achieved, can only be secured and can only be made real
if the religion of humanity, which is at present the highest active ideal
of mankind, spiritualises itself and becomes the general inner law of
human life. ...

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A spiritual religion of humanity is the hope of the future. ... A religion
of humanity means the growing realisation that there is a secret Spirit,
a divine Reality, in which we are all one, that humanity is its highest
present vehicle on earth, that the human race and the human being are
the means by which it will pregressively reveal itself here. It implies a
growing attempt to live out this knowledge and bring about a kingdom
of this divine Spirit upon earth. By its growth within us oneness with
our fellow-men will become the leading principle of all our life, not
merely a principle of co-operation but a deeper brotherhood, a real
and an inner sense of unity and equality and a common life. ...

But the higher hope of humanity lies in the growing number of men
who will realise this truth and seek to develop it in themselves, so
that when the mind of man is ready to escape from its mechanical
bent, — perhaps when it finds that its mechanical solutions are all
temporary and disappointing, — the truth of the Spirit may step in
and lead humanity to the path of its highest possible happiness and
perfection.

SRI AUROBINDO

The Human Cycle, sixth ed., chapters XXXIV and XXXV,
pp. 540-555 sparsim

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An overall view of the "Matrimandir’, showing the huge structure asit will
look after completion in a complex of 12 gardens symbolically recalling
the open petals of a lotus flower. Its golden discs will move gently in the
wind and willcoverthe concrete walls overaid with plastic [the synthetic
“skin” - ed.] Pathways from the gardens pass between walls 30ft. high
that will slope down to forma 12-sectioned craterenshnning the golden
ball. Cross-section of the structure (below), designed by the French
architect, Roger Anger, shows stairways leading to a lower room from
which rampsgive accessto a 12-sided hall of meditation in this struc ture
of spiritual unity. At its centre a luminous ball [suspended in a magnetic
field — ed.] will diffuse light into both rooms from the top of the structure,
which is pierced vertically down its axis. [The UNESCO Courer 1972]

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RESOLUTIONS ON AUROVILLE
PASSED BY UNESCO

[The General Assembly of UNESCO, held annually in Paris in October-
November, unanimously passed resolutions of support to Auroville in
1966, 1968, 1970 and 1983:]

1st UNESCO RESOLUTION, 1966:

The General Conference,

Being apprised that in connection with the commemoration of the
twentieth anniversary of UNESCO, the Sri Aurobindo Society,
Puducherry, India, a non-governmental organisation affiliated to the
Indian National Commission for UNESCO, proposes to set up a cultural
township known as “Auroville” where people of different countries
will live together in harmony in one community and engage in cultural,
educational, scientific and other pursuits,

Noting that the township will have pavilions intended to represent the
cultures of the world, not only intellectually but also by presenting
different schools of architecture, painting, sculpture, music, etc, as part
of a way of living,

Appreciating that one of the aims of “Auroville” will be to bring together
in close juxtaposition the values and ideals of different civilizations and
cultures,

Expresses the belief that the project will contribute to international

understanding and promotion of peace and commends it to those
interested in UNESCO’s ideals.

2nd UNESCO RESOLUTION, 1968:

The General Conference,

Recalling that in connection with commemoration of the 20th
anniversary of UNESCO, the Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry, India,
had taken steps to establish an international cultural township known
as Auroville where people of different countries will live together in
one community and engage in cultural, educational and other pursuits,
and that this project has been commended to all those interested in

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UNESCO’s ideals in resolution 4.36 passed at the fourteenth session of
the General Conference.

Considering that Member States, believing in the pursuit of truth and
the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, have agreed and determined
to develop and to increase the means of communication between their
peoples,

Considering also that, despite the technical advance which facilitates
the development and dissemination of knowledge and ideas, ignorance
of the way of life and customs of people still presents an obstacle
to friendship among the nations, to peaceful cooperation, and to the
progress of mankind,

Taking account of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the
Declaration on the Promotion among Youth of the Ideas of Peace, Mutual
Respect and Understanding between Peoples and the Declaration of the
Principles of International Cultural Cooperation,

Noting that the foundation-stone of Auroville has been laid on 28th
February 1968 and that the youth of many nations participated in this
solemn ceremony symbolizing the coming together of nations in a spirit
of human unity,

Confident that Auroville with its many interrelated sub-projects will
add a new dimension to UNESCO’s activities for the promotion of
international co-operation and understanding and appreciation of
cultural and human values,

Invites Member States and international non-governmental organizations
to participate in the development of Auroville as an international
cultural township designed to bring together the values of different
cultures and civilisations in a harmonious environment with integrated
living standard which correspond to man’s physical and spiritual needs.

3rd UNESCO RESOLUTION, 1970:

The General Conference,

Recalling resolutions 4.36 and 4.131 concerning Auroville which
were adopted by the fourteenth and fifteenth sessions of the General
Conference,

Noting that the Charter of Auroville aims inter alia at establishing “a

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place of unending education, of constant progress, of youth that never
ages”, and “living embodiment of an actual human unity,”

Recognizing the progress made in Auroville since the foundation stone
was laid on 28th February 1968,

Conscious of the new responsibilities cast on UNESCO in the wake of
growing unrest among youth from almost every part of the world; and
which has taken the form of an open dispute with the universities and
society,

Aware of the urgent need to welcome the “newly vocal young as allies
in the search for a better world”, and in keeping up with the spirit of
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for the promotion among
youth of ideas of peace, mutual respect and understanding between
peoples, and in conformity with the Declaration of the Principles of
International Cultural Co-operation,

Noting further that towards this end Auroville is already preparing and
creating an instrument of education capable of meeting the formidable
demands of our age, linking East and West in a new relationship,
Considering that UNESCO’s Major Project on the Mutual Appreciation
of Eastern and Western Cultural Values gave a pioneering start, and
recognizing that Auroville can be an effective and integrated follow-up
of this Project,

Requests the Director-General to take such steps as may be feasible
within the budgetary provisions to promote the development of
Auroville as an important international cultural programme.

4th UNESCO RESOLUTION, 1983:

The General Conference,

Recalling the foundation of an international township, Auroville in
South India in February 1968, when the youth of 124 Member States
participated in the ceremony by depositing the soil of their countries in
the foundation urn to symbolise the coming together of the nations of
the world,

Noting that the Charter of Auroville, announced at the Foundation
Ceremony, declared that Auroville belongs to nobody in particular but
to humanity as a whole and enunciated the aims of unending education
and youth that never ages, as also material and spiritual research for the
living embodiment of an actual human unity,

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Recognising that Auroville seeks to ensure international understanding,
peace, innovative education, a learning society and all round material
and spiritual development for harmonious individual and collective
growth and that such aims contribute to the advancement of the
objectives of UNESCO,

Recognising that during the last fourteen years, Auroville has been
growing steadily and that the resident members of Auroville, including
125 children represent twenty-four countries,

Noting that Auroville International Centres have been established in
different parts of the world to work for the growth, development and
promotion of the aims and objectives of Auroville,

Noting that the Government of India has taken an active interest
in Auroville and has fully supported its ideals of international
understanding and the unity of mankind,

Welcoming the fact that an International Advisory Council has been set
up to advise the Government of India on ensuring the promotion of the
ideals for which Auroville was established,

Noting that the work at Auroville aims at restoring the ecological
balance of a severely deforested, eroded land by an extensive
programme of afforestation, erosion control and soil conservation, and
also by initiating a new approach to integrated rural and educational
development,

Appreciating the experimentation in Auroville in alternative sources of
energy and in new methods of economic development permitting the
free pooling of resources and cooperative activities,

Recalling that in 1970 the General Conference adopted a resolution
inviting Member States and _ international non-governmental
organisations to participate in the development of Auroville as an
International Cultural Township, and inviting the Director-General to
take such steps as might be feasible, within the budgetary provisions,
to promote the development of Auroville as an important international
cultural programme,

Invites the Director-General to extend all possible support for the
development of Auroville and to participate in its activities within the
framework of the Programme and Budget for 1984 -1985.

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5th UNESCO RESOLUTION, 2017:
The General Conference,

Recalling the foundation of an international township, Auroville, in
South India on February 28, 1968, when the youth of 124 Member
States participated in the ceremony by depositing the soil of their
countries in the foundation urn to symbolize the coming together of
the nations of the world,

Noting that the General Conference of UNESCO unanimously
adopted resolutions of support to Auroville
in 1966, 1968, 1970 and 1983, inviting Member States and
international non-governmental organizations to participate in the
development of Auroville as an international cultural township
designed to bring together the values of different cultures and
civilizations in a harmonious environment with integrated living
standards which correspond to man's physical and spiritual needs,

Recognizing that the aims of Auroville are to promote intemational
understanding, peace, innovative education, a learning society and
all-round material and spiritual development for harmonious
individual and collective growth, and that such aims contribute to
the advancement of the objectives of UNESCO, especially dialogue
among civilizations, cultures and religions, cultural diversity and
culture as a factor for development,

Appreciating that the Government of India passed, in 1988,
the Auroville Foundation Act for the purpose of protecting and
encouraging the development of Auroville,

Also appreciating that Auroville International Centres have been
established in many countries of the world, which are engaged in
bringing youth from their countries into contact with the aims and
ideals of Auroville and in facilitating internships, volunteer stays
and academic research programmes,

Also recognizing that Auroville has developed into a centre of
expertise in a wide range of fields, benefiting India and noting its

success in sharing its experience and helping the development of its
neighboring rural population,

Acknowledging that Auroville is inviting all nations of the world to
participate in its development, especially of its International Zone,
which is designated as an educational campus hosting cultural
pavilions of all nations or groups of nations, expressing the genius
of each culture,

Also noting that 28 February 2018 will mark the 50th anniversary
of the founding of Auroville,

Further recognizing that Auroville is a successful and unique model
project, proving the capacity of an international community, after
almost 50 years of existence, to continue to live up to its initial
founding ideas of peace and international harmony and which are
also UNESCO’s own values and principles, as well as some of its
major priorities,

Invites the Director-General to reinforce the association of
UNESCO with Auroville and organize commemorative activities
for its 50th anniversary, and to re-invite the Member States on the
special occasion of Auroville’s 50th anniversary to participate in
Auroville’s further development.